How Did Lamar Odom Fall So Far?
Everything that happened before former NBA star Lamar Odom suffered multiple strokes on the floor of a Pahrump brothel.
Living Above the Store
Fuzzy memories of a house overlooking the Sunset Strip that played host to a generation of comics—including Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, and Robin Williams—launching dozens of careers and about as many drug problems.
The Outcast
For almost 20 years, Greg Torti has lived the life of a convicted sex offender—carrying a blue ID card with him at all times, avoiding schools and parks, living on the outskirts of town. It’s a just punishment for the crime, he says. It’s just that he didn’t commit it.
My Writing Education: A Time Line
“What we’re doing in writing is not all that different from what we’ve been doing all our lives, i.e., using our personalities as a way of coping with life.”
From Our Archive: Writers on Writing
Didion, Orwell, Nabokov, Murakami and 20 more writers on how they work.</p>
They Found Love, Then They Found Gender
A Texas love story.
The Lost Buddhas of Bamiyan
Picking up the pieces in Afghanistan.
We reprinted this article on Longform to help raise money for the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award, which in our friend Matt's memory will fund promising young writers to bring forward unreported stories of importance from overlooked corners of the world. Please donate today.
Tears and Terror
The troubling final years of Mickey Rooney’s life.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Who Will Greet You at Home"
Magic, horror, and handmade children.
Inside Stanford Business School’s Spiraling Sex Scandal
A love triangle between two married professors and the dean goes public.
How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor
Lowell Wood helped bring down the Soviet Union, has created what could be the first concussion-free football helmet, and has regular brainstorming sessions with Bill Gates. He also drives a 20-year-old Toyota with 300,000 miles on it.
Matthew Shaer is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and The Atavist Magazine.
“I could not turn off the freelance switch in my head. I could not not be thinking about these different types of stories. My Google Alert list looks like a serial killer's.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, Howl, and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode.
There Once Was a Dildo in Nantucket
On the wives of whalers and their dildos.
This Is a Story About Loss
On finding something at Unclaimed Baggage Center, the Alabama store that sells what America loses.
The Strange Case of Anna Stubblefield
She told the family of a severely disabled man that she could help him to communicate with the outside world. Then she said they were in love.
Who Killed Lorenzen Wright?
Investigating the unsolved murder of a former NBA player.
Shuttered
On the ground with a young Texas doctor who travels the state to provide abortions.
The Doctor
Tom Catena is the only surgeon for thousands of square miles in Southern Sudan. His hospital, and his life, are constantly under threat. There is no end to the carnage he must treat. He refuses to leave.
Ten Borders
A Syrian refugee’s epic escape route through Europe.
Mr. Pop
He created the template for contemporary hit-making, made Ace of Base the biggest group in the world, and mentored the most successful songwriter since the Beatles. Why have you never heard of Denniz Pop? Excerpted from The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory.
"I Don't Want to Be That Person Anymore"
With three shows currently in production, Ryan Murphy, creator of Glee and American Horror Story, is one of the few show runners whose name commands an audience.
Ermahgerddon: The Untold Story of the Ermahgerd Girl
When a random person becomes a massive meme.
A Con Man's Second Act
The story of Aiden Sinclair, the “grifter magician.”
The Story Behind Bob Beamon's Miracle Jump and the Only Photo That Mattered
How an amateur photographer documented the greatest achievement in track and field history.
The Lonely Death of George Bell
And the task of unraveling his life.
