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n+1's winter issue, "Amnesty," is out now.
The editors take on The Atlantic, Harper's, and The Paris Review. Lawrence Jackson goes up against the Slickheads. Julia Grønnevet reports from the Anders Behring Breivik trial in Oslo. Nikil Saval surveys China's long Eighties.
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Pamela Colloff is an executive editor and staff writer at Texas Monthly.
"There are many, many people who write and they have tragic stories, but they're not necessarily compelling magazine articles. Figuring out what is a compelling magazine article and what isn't is one of the more painful things about this. You can't look into every case. But your job is to be a storyteller."
Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode!
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Only a handful of animals in the world can be tamed, but that can’t stop a homesick 15-year-old girl from trying.
In “A Raccoon of My Own,” new in Aeon Magazine, American psychologist and best-selling writer Lauren Slater recalls an exquisitely painful time in her youth, when, cast adrift from home herself, she adopted a baby raccoon. Her relationship with “Amelia” blossomed—one creature adapting to, and learning from the other. But Amelia’s wild instincts could not be contained in suburban domestic life, as Lauren was soon to realize.
Read it in Aeon Magazine—a new digital magazine publishing daily essays on ideas, culture and science.
Adrian Chen is a staff writer at Gawker and editor at The New Inquiry.
"I've never written a magazine feature. [My writing is] similar, in that I try to bring in the bigger issues, and not just, you know, be funny or tell a sensational story. But I think it's also kind of rough and sketchy in the way that blog posts are. Longform blog writing is like, I don't spend a long time editing or looking it over. It's like, just type as fast as you can and try to cram all of your research in, and then it goes up."
Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode!
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Whether you are looking for exceptional longform journalism, dazzling photography, or a new way to explore your passions, Zinio has you covered. Zinio is the world’s largest digital newsstand with more than 5,500 magazines from 35 countries. Read your favorites online or off; Zinio has apps for iOS, Google Play, PC, and Mac.
This week, Zinio recommends “In a Dangerous Place,” an amazing article from Elephant about the trials and tribulations of acclaimed artist Marcus Harvey.
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Chris Jones (Live in Romania)
Evan Ratliff interviews Chris Jones before a live audience in Bucharest, hosted by the Romanian magazine Decât o Revistă.
"It just feels good to fucking win ... If you want to say 'Let's get rid of [journalism awards],' no problem. But if they exist, I want to win them. Just because I won two—I know Gary Smith has won four. I want five. Unless Gary Smith wins five, and then I want six. That's just how I work. And maybe that's a terrible, competitive, creepy thing. But journalism is competitive."
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A moving story of exploitation, bravery, and survival—in comics form.
In “Stowaway,” the new enhanced e-comic from The Atavist, award-winning cartoonist Josh Neufeld and investigative journalist Tori Marlan bring a human trafficking victim’s story to the comics medium.
Jeanne Marie Laskas is the author of the new book Hidden America and a correspondent for GQ.
"I'm just a writer going into [people's lives], you know? What do you do with that kind of intensity of a relationship when you're job is to invoke it on the page? It's a huge ... not just privilege but responsibility. Because, you know, it's just for a story. And I tell them that: 'I'm asking you trust me, but at the same time don't trust me. I'm kind of like a vulture in this relationship—we're not friends.'"
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The first major update to Longform’s critically acclaimed iPad app is available on the App Store.
Now included: dark mode, new fonts, fine-grain control over the reading experience, and more than 20 new magazines to follow.
Gideon Lewis-Kraus is the author of A Sense of Direction.
"My best friend, who is a fiction writer, she once said to me that she saw a lot of the things I was doing as 'wring tenderness from absurdity.' That wouldn't have occurred to me to put it that way, but that does seem to me [what] I like to do ... I am someone who can very easily be dismissive, or even contemptuous. And one of the things I like about reporting a story, particularly reporting a story that is ultimately, counterintuitively, positive, is that it gives me a chance to work through that, and be the more tender, sympathetic person that I would like to be in real life."
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BuzzFeed, a new kind of media company for the social world, is hiring a Longform Editor:
We're looking for an experienced editor who can assign, edit and occasionally write reported narrative features — and who wants to help us figure out how to make long, reported articles work on the social web. This job is based in our NYC offices and offers a competitive compensation with stock options.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic and author of The Beautiful Struggle.
"I was 24 when my son was born. People always say that kids get in the way, right? But actually it had the opposite effect on me. I feel like I could have spent my twenties doing all sorts of self-destructive things--that was my natural inclination--but having a kid suddenly makes that not OK ... The stakes of everything just went up. I think I'm the type of person where, for any reason, I only respond to pressure. That kid just so raised the pressure, for everything ... So I started writing for the Washington Monthly, and the Monthly pays shit, everybody knows that, right? They were paying ten cents a word at this point. But because they have these big-shots writing for them, nobody ever calls for the check! But I would say, 'no, I need you to send me that check. Yeah, I know it's only $150, but I actually need that check, you really need to send that check.'"
Paul Ford is a writer and programmer.
"You don't really read a newspaper to preserve journalism, or save great journalism, or to keep the newspaper going. You read it because it gives you a sense of power or control over the environment that you're in, and actually sort of helps you define what your personal territory is, and what the things are that matter for you. As long as products serve that need—as long as books allow you to explore spaces that it's otherwise really hard for you to explore and so on—I think people will continue to read them."
David Grann is a staff writer at The New Yorker.
"You don't always know all the answers. I think that's what kinda makes life interesting. The thing that makes these stories real, while they are in some ways unfathomable, [is that] there's an uneasiness of certitude. Because there are things that are not always known, there are elements of doubt, and that can be very haunting ... In some of the stories, you get as close as you can to all you know—and then there are parts that elude you."
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What can be salvaged from publishing? What does it mean to write for the 50% of US adults who have trouble reading? What happens to crime reporting when you cover every victim, every suspect, every murder with the same care?
Contents publishes open-source editorial ideas for new journalism, digital publishing, content strategy, and everything in between. Always free, always online, fresh each week.
We recommend their latest piece, "House of Cards" by Robin Sloan.
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Guy Lawson’s new book is a real-life thriller that tells the inside story of an audacious hedge fund fraud and the wild search, by a colorful cast of rogues and schemers, for a “secret market” beneath the financial market we all know.
Read an excerpt in New York, or pick up a copy on GuyLawson.com.
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Distance is a quarterly journal with long essays about design and technology, making this the most well-targeted advertisement ever.
Our second issue is out now, with essays from: Cassie McDaniel, about how designers can change the world in far-flung industries; Sharlene King, about homework’s role in our daily work; and Francisco Inchauste, about how to build more meaningful businesses.
Single copies and subscriptions are available at distance.cc. Thanks for reading.
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Story picks from Longform.org, plus all of the latest articles from dozens of the world’s best magazines. Elegant, reader-friendly design. Offline accessible. Perfect for commutes, flights, and Sunday afternoons.
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In “Shelf-Love,” Ben Dolnick recounts his feverish, hilarious, occasionally mortifying love for the writing of Alice Munro. It’s an essay for everyone who has ever truly loved a book, and for anyone who has ever thought about writing one.
Weekly sponsorships of Longform are available in July.
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The new issue of n+1, “Awkward Age,” is now available.
The editors against credentialism, Big Babies versus the Nanny State. Phoenix family psychodrama, crisis at the library, and Gordon Lish returns. New fiction and a new controversies section.
Pick up a copy of the new issue today, or buy a print or digital subscription to n+1 for 20 percent off with discount code LONGFORM.
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What happens when you combine golf, solitaire and a Caddyshack-esque gopher?
From USA Today: “Every once in a while a game comes along that’s so engrossing you can’t simply put it down… add Fairway Solitaire to that coveted list…Even if you’re not a fan of golf…Good luck with getting anything done in the coming months.”
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Is the century-old Jewish-Leftist alliance ending?
For much of the 20th century, the radical and revolutionary left played a huge role in defining how the rest of America saw Jews and how Jews saw themselves. In an essay for Tablet Magazine, literary critic Adam Kirsch considers whether that linkage is over.
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Can robots allow a woman to escape paralysis, with only her thoughts?
In “The Electric Mind,” the latest story from The Atavist, Jessica Benko tells the incredible tale of a radical new technology, a pioneering group of researchers, and one woman’s fight to move again. Available as an enhanced ebook in The Atavist app for iPad and iPhone.
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