We're accepting drafts and pitches for reported and personal essays at [email protected].
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4. For @kristastevens, "Romina Cenisio's Atmos piece on the monarch butterfly migration recalls the singular joy that butterflies bring, along with critically important reminders of our role as humans to ensure the well-being of butterflies for generations to come."
https://atmos.earth/the-monarch-butterfly-migration-is-in-danger/?src=longreads
It's Top 5 time! A year in the life of a grieving mother. An afternoon of outcry. A peek into the life of a celebrity ghostwriter. A witness to a monarch migration. And the friendship behind sushi’s arrival in the U.S. These are our favorite reads of the week. 🧵
https://longreads.com/2023/05/12/the-top-5-longreads-of-the-week-465/
"I made a self, and since then, I have struggled to make sense of myself."
At @longreads, Samuel Ernest considers music — both his own and the music of Perfume Genius — in coming out, and in coming to terms with both his faith and his sexuality.
Such a beautiful piece. Sam is a writer to follow!
#Longreads #PersonalEssay #PerfumeGenius #Violin #ComingOut #Pride
"It was both a failure and a discovery: Without my sheet music or memory, I could lurch forward anyway, relying on the technique I had spent most of my life internalizing."
At @longreads, Samuel Ernest's beautiful new essay considers faith, music, and musicianship in his coming out story.
https://longreads.com/2023/05/02/cocooning-samuel-ernest/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=social
#Longreads #PersonalEssay #ComingOut #Pride #PerfumeGenius #Music #Faith
"Much of the time, I feel like a girl. A curious girl of 48 who, today, is walking the neighborhood streets with a girl of 13, and listening to what this girl has to say. She happens to be my kid, this person I made, a living being that gave my life a whole new significance. She will grow up and leave me and yet never leave me; she will be mine forever, a being I shaped."
Today's new @longreads essay, by Susannah Felts, makes me cry. It's about music, yes. Music by strong young women speaking their truths.
But it's also very much about being a mother, and being an artist, and coming into one's own, and watching and learning about oneself and the world through the eyes of a daughter.
Susannah Felts | Longreads | April 27, 2023 | 16 minutes (4,248 words) 1. On a November night in 2018, I went to a show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the kind of show that fans like me enjoy telling other fans they were there for, years after the fact. Three songwriters in their 20s […]
In advance of Mother's Day, Claire Hodgdon brings us eight thoughtful reads for those who have lost their moms. "But there is another face, sometimes. I recognize other 'dead mom kids' almost instantly. They don’t pity — they laugh. They raise their hand for a high five. They respond with, 'Mine too!' and my whole body relaxes."
In this excerpt from her book "We Are Not Okay" Christian Livermore writes about the shame she will forever carry for growing up poor:
"Nobel laureate Amartya Sen tells us that shame lies at the core of poverty. Anyone who grew up poor instinctively knows this to be true. She feels that shame every minute of every day, in the background if she is feeling good, in her face if she is not."
"It was an informal system with implicit rules: Round up your horses in the winter, absolutely no stallions. But when the economy tanked in 2008, many in the region could no longer afford to feed their horses. And so they simply left them—even their stallions—on these sites, hopeful they would survive on the grass that mining companies were legally obligated to plant after operations had shut down."
https://sundaylongread.com/2023/04/08/saving-the-horses-of-our-imagination/
"Most surfers’ best protection is self-knowledge; they only go out when the size of the wave matches their skill level, and no higher. And all surfers know the admonition about going out with a buddy, or at least when there are others in the water. Just in case. It is common sense. It is wisdom. And yet, some days, I go out alone."
—Mylène Dressler on the allure of surfing and the joy she finds in the water.
Longreads
Cheri Lucas Rowlands