Longreads

Low Stakes Forever

Gordon Korman wrote his first bestseller in seventh grade. Eighty-eight books (and counting) later, a movie adaptation revisits the early work of a man whose audience changes every graduation season.

A Journey to the Medical Netherworld

If your child gets sick, hope for something mechanical. Failing that, wish for something commonplace. This is a mother's quest to find her daughter a diagnosis.

Surviving the Love Bomb

Having phone sex in a bush behind a library on the fourth of July stopped me from converting to Mormonism.

Winona, Forever

Ryder has always been trapped in her own anticipatory nostalgia, and the public has always wanted to keep her there.

Unearthing the Sea Witch

Ursula was a singular Disney villain, and behind the animated tentacles was a real-life, big-haired, poo-eating Baltimore drag queen named Divine.

Bleeding Out the Jinn

Marginalized, ignored, oppressed—many here are broken. The rest are trying desperately not to break.

Things That Ordinary People Wouldn't Do: To Die For at 20

Gus Van Sant's 1995 adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel revolved around self-control under observation. Two decades later, it feels both prescient and all the more relevant.

Black Magic, Nazi Scientists and Nuclear Panic: How We Got to Outer Space

On humanity's often fanatical, obsessive, and fearful road to the cosmos over the course of the 20th century.

First Responders at the End of the World

A nuclear device explodes in a Midwestern city. A hurricane ravages a susceptible coast. What happens next? Inside Vibrant Response, the U.S. Department of Defense's worst-case scenario drill.

The Girl King of Boylesque

Lou Henry Hoover is a force in boylesque, the traditionally male offshoot of the traditionally female world of burlesque. He's also an outsider: Hoover is the drag persona of the dancer Ricki Mason.