Can You Spare Fifteen Minutes?
My reading preferences have always been fiction novels. Very rarely (outside of my academic reading) have I picked up a nonfiction book or a collection of short stories. But lately I have been wanting to delve into niche topics that you might not find in novels. I’ve been wanting to read more nonfiction, but the thought of picking up a two-hundred page book seems tedious. In the past couple of years, I’ve discovered a type of article that allows for short stories to be told and new information to be learned: longreads.
Longreads, if you couldn’t guess by its name, are articles that are lengthy in nature. (And by “lengthy,” they can range anywhere from ten minutes to thirty, or even longer.) These kinds of articles include short stories, essays, longform journalism pieces, in-depth interviews, and more. There is something for everyone. Several websites that host free longreads are the titular website Longreads (my favorite place to look for pieces), The Atlantic, and The Guardian; you can also find longreads on magazine websites, such as Vogue or The Paris Review. Personally, I have a Google Doc full of bookmarked longreads that I’ve been meaning to read. Since I don’t have time to read novels while I’m in the middle of a semester, digesting a longread is easier.
Below, I’ve given my thoughts on two different longread pieces. I picked articles that pertain to who I am as a person. I’ve linked the articles, too, if you wish to read them for yourself.
“But What Will Your Parents Think?” Morgan Jerkins [link]
As someone who is still new to writing and publishing her feelings and thoughts for the world to read, I cannot express how much I love Morgan Jerkins’s essay. She writes with a candor that I can only hope to aspire to. When writing, there is always fear. This fear comes in many different forms. Fear of not being able to say what I mean. Fear of disappointing myself. Fear of angering loved ones. “Fear is the little sister my mother never gave birth to. She appears and reappears in the furthest corner of the room in which I write and inches closer and closer as I approach the heart of a confession.” Writing takes courage. And every day I inch closer to finding that courage and setting myself free.
"The First Time I Moved to New York," Alexander Chee [link ]
A personal essay by writer Alexander Chee, he writes about his relationships with men, literature, and New York City itself. It resonated with me, as I am now having to navigate my on-again, off-again relationship with NYC as COVID-19 continues to plague us and I have to make decisions regarding my schooling, my safety, and my finances. “New York had felt like a misplaced destiny to me for years. A place I should be in but wasn’t.”
When it comes to longreads, there is something for everyone. As I have been researching for this blog post, I’ve read over twenty longreads within a couple of days, making only a small dent in my bookmarks document. So if you have ten or twenty minutes, find a longread and learn something new. If you find a piece you think I might like, email me and let me know about it at abesecker1@pride.hofstra.edu. I’d love to hear from you!