Announcing Our 2025 Member Drive
October 15, 2025 at 08:30PM
“For years, I’ve turned to Longreads as a source of enrichment as a reader. It has offered me new worlds and new ways of thinking. Its articles have formed the basis of so many conversations with friends, deep dives on new topics and authors, and inspiration and possibility within the craft of writing. Supporting Longreads sustains an essential publication for readers and writers alike.”
Ben Lee (“Uncanny Testimony”)
You don’t need us to tell you how much the media world has changed in recent years. Publications are closing. Wages are stagnant (or dropping). As venture capital and private equity have remade the landscape, and as publishers chase audiences across social video platforms, it’s easy to think that thoughtful longform journalism is an endangered species.
At Longreads, we refuse to believe that.
From our very founding, we’ve made it our mission to publish and amplify the best nonfiction writing on the web. Bringing you these stories matters to us because stories matter. And now, in a moment when people so rarely take the time to think before they speak (and rarely listen at all!), they matter more than ever. Longform journalism and creative nonfiction requires us to slow down and focus. It helps us see the world differently, and remember that ours isn’t the only experience or perspective.
But frankly, publishing that work doesn’t pay for itself. That’s why we’re kicking off our 2025 Member Drive today. Between now and the end of October, we’re asking you, and all of our hundreds of thousands of readers, to join us in our mission by becoming members—i.e., recurring supporters. We’ve set a goal of $75,000 for the drive; if even 1% of our readers choose to support us, we’ll hit that goal in no time. Will you help ensure that Longreads is around for many years to come?
Become a Member
Support thoughtful journalism with a monthly or annual donation. Recurring donors will receive our weekly Top 5 newsletter.
Every dollar you pledge goes right back to writers, funding the award-winning journalism we publish. It’s how we’ve operated since 2011, and it’s how we operate today. It’s brought us Pushcart Prizes, Peabody Awards, a National Magazine Award (and multiple nominations), and countless anthology inclusions. It’s led to book deals and television options for our writers. And as “content” continues to supplant considered, nuanced writing, it’s helped us fight the good fight.
Yes, the publishing world is changing. It’s also always changing. It was changing when Longreads was founded in 2009 (RIP, Gourmet and Blender), it was changing when Automattic acquired Longreads in 2014 (pivot to video, anyone?), and it’s changing as we speak. But change doesn’t have to mean extinction. Not if we have anything to do with it.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
The Longreads Team
(Seyward Darby, Brendan Fitzgerald, Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Peter Rubin, Krista Stevens, and Carolyn Wells)
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/10/15/2025-member-drive-announcement/
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