It’s always a thrill when an essay or article we’ve published is selected for publication in one of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s annual, venerated The Best American Series anthologies.
This year Longreads is proud to announce that no fewer than five pieces we published in 2019 will be published in four of the books.
Below, a list of the pieces and the books they will appear in.
To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time
Matthew Salesses considers the impact of his wife’s passing, and other factors, on his experience as a human passing through the fourth dimension.
This essay by Matthew Salesses, from our Fine Lines series, will appear in The Best American Essays 2020.
The Final Five Percent
If traumatic brain injuries can impact the parts of the brain responsible for personality, judgment, and impulse control, maybe injury should be a mitigating factor in criminal trials — but one neuroscientist discovers that assigning crime a biological basis creates more issues than it solves.
This piece by Tim Requarth will appear in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020.
Revisiting My Grandfather’s Garden
During a return trip to Tehran, Mojgan Ghazirad searches for her childhood home and witnesses the damage U.S. sanctions have brought to Iranian lives.
This essay by Mojgan Ghazirad will appear in The Best American Travel Writing 2020.
Vacation Memories Marred By the Indelible Stain of Racism
Shanna B. Tiayon recalls an interaction with a National Parks Service bus driver that cast a pall on a family trip to the Grand Canyon.
This essay by Shanna B. Tiayon will appear in The Best American Travel Writing 2020.
The Man Who’s Going to Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store
American food supplies are increasingly channeled through a handful of big companies: Amazon, Walmart, FreshDirect, Blue Apron. What do we lose when local supermarkets go under? A lot — and Kevin Kelley wants to stop that.
This article by Joe Fassler, co-published by Longreads and The Counter, will appear in The Best American Food Writing 2020.
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Congratulations to Matthew Salesses, Tim Requarth, Mojgan Ghazirad, Shanna B. Tiayon, Joe Fassler, and The Counter, our partner in co-publishing Fassler’s piece. And many thanks to The Best American Essays editors André Aciman and Robert Atwan; The Best American Food Writing editors J. Kenji López-Alt and Silvia Killingsworth; The Best American Travel Writing editors Robert Macfarlane and Jason Wilson; and The Best American Science and Nature Writing editors Michio Kaku and Jaime Green.