Longreads.com is one of a few excellent new aggregators of long, mostly narrative journalism from all over the web. Together, these sites -- there's also Longform.com and Byliner.com -- are making it possible to read a wide range of literary journalism without all the noise that surrounds it in magazines. There's no news-you-can-use, no fashion spreads, no gadget reviews. If one of these sites features a celeb profile, it's because their editors think it's better than hackwork.
Longreads.com is first out of the gate in recognizing that much of what's being written by younger writers is better than hackwork because so many younger writers don't even know what a hack is, yet. For better or worse, most college writers aren't writing to pay their bills. So if they can escape the tyranny of grades, they can write simply to write well.
That's the theory behind 40 Towns. We're thrilled that Longreads.com has noticed -- they've just made "The Shady Lady," by our assistant editor, Danny Valdes, their fourth College Longreads Pick of the Week.
Longreads.com is first out of the gate in recognizing that much of what's being written by younger writers is better than hackwork because so many younger writers don't even know what a hack is, yet. For better or worse, most college writers aren't writing to pay their bills. So if they can escape the tyranny of grades, they can write simply to write well.
That's the theory behind 40 Towns. We're thrilled that Longreads.com has noticed -- they've just made "The Shady Lady," by our assistant editor, Danny Valdes, their fourth College Longreads Pick of the Week.