Author: British Day

Last weekend, a friend forwarded me a video. I clicked on the link nonchalantly, expecting a joyful puppy or perhaps a triumphant head of lettuce. But as the clip played, I sat up straighter, a coldness creeping over my heart. It started innocently enough, with a woman browsing in a store, but something catches her eye, and the chilling wall is revealed: A wall of ’90s Halloween costumes.  For $5, you can wrap a velvet choker around your neck, adorn your hair with butterfly clips, and clasp a fake Nokia 3310 to your ear. Ten dollars gets you a black…

Christian Livermore | We Are Not Okay | October 2022 | 5,780 words (21 minutes) “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” — James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room *** I am rummaging through the junk drawer in my father’s kitchen, looking for clay, or putty, or caulking. I am twelve years old, and I have an assignment due the following day for Earth Science. I have to make a working volcano. Most of the time there is no mustard, so I don’t know how I’m going to find the ingredients for a working volcano. Even now, years later, the…

As the son of a librarian and a university professor, I can barely remember a childhood that didn’t involve books. Books were everywhere: the oversized, illustrated volumes stacked arms high as I stumbled out of the children’s section; the popular science fiction and fantasy novels that defined my youth and teenage years; the thick, boring-looking volumes with the word “work” in the title that crowded the shelves in my dad’s office; the middle-class, mainstream paperbacks neatly stacked next to my mom’s bed. When I read Freya Howarth’s “Guide to Building Your Own Library” PsycheBut then I realized how much my…

Keshia Naurana Badalge  | Longreads | July 2022 | 10 minutes (3,285 words) For each year that I move around the sun, my sister ages seven times as much. The odds are in my favor that even though we grew up together, I will experience her tail end before mine ever comes.  It was a Saturday in June, one year ago, when I got the news. My partner and I were living in Bakoven, a spot in Cape Town at the confluence of mountains and ocean. In the mornings, sunlight would sift in through our front windows, mirroring the milky gold…

Benjamin DuBow | Longreads | May 2022 | 16 minutes (4,536 words) Early on Friday mornings, when the air still whispers with the night, I make sure to feed Orlando before heading out to the community farm. 1 After much experimentation, we (Orlando and I) have found that a blend of flours works best: all-purpose, dark rye, and sprouted wheat is the currently favored combination. It seems the sprouted wheat is especially nutritious, for humans and sourdough alike. Back when I first got started with starters, I used to weigh out the flour(s)1 and water to ensure an equal ratio,…

By Clare Egan Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, I brace myself for a flood of articles about Ireland. Almost always, these stories rely on a series of well-worn tropes that caricature the place I call home. No doubt you’ve read stories which reference Irish people’s love of alcohol and seen images of random things dyed green. While living in the U.S., I became accustomed to talking to strangers about Ireland. I have curly red hair, blue eyes, and a freckled complexion. My Irish accent is inescapable. When you look as Irish as I do, strangers want to talk to…

Lisa Bubert I have a mission to return to being human. Rather than doing good deeds, immersing myself in nature, or communing with the universe, the most human thing I felt I could do was step away from social media. Deleting my account seemed like an easy and concrete action, but it wasn’t for me. I’m a freelance writer who relies on Twitter for things like pitch calls and the all-important Discourse of the Day. Even though the main purpose of Instagram seems to be to make me feel terrible, Stories still helps me get noticed for my writing. Facebook…

Irina Dumitrescu | Longreads | November 2021 | 3,065 words (17 minutes) It is the fall of my senior year and I am at a pub with the professor and a group of his students. At one point I look down and notice his hand is on my leg. “I’m sorry, my hand is on your leg,” he says with a defiant look. “Oh wait, I’m not sorry.” I am speechless but I give him my firmest glare. He removes his hand and never does it again. That’s that, I think then, I think so many times later. The sexual…

Devin Kelly | Longreads | July, 2021 | 17 minutes (4,874 words) I hate the part of me that has become impatient. I notice it more these days. I notice it when I create a plan for myself and a friend’s schedule doesn’t fit that plan. I notice it in how I structure my days, even days supposedly given to leisure. How I’ll give myself an hour to read upon waking, an hour to exercise. How, if I’m going for a walk, I want to be outside by a certain time. How I’ll start to feel anxious if I’m not.…

Heather Lanier | Longreads | March 2021 | 16 minutes (4,473 words) A few years ago on a gorgeous June day, I found myself in a windowless bathroom with forget-me-not wallpaper, my butt on a toilet, without any good reason to be there. It was a standard mothering move. Beyond the door, I could hear my two small kids laughing and eating cereal, so I stayed in this little space, smartphone in hand. In an hour, I was headed to a bowling alley with my kids, both of whom could now walk through a doorway on their own. And this…