This story was funded by our members. Join Longreads and help us to support more writers. In this week’s edition: The up-and-coming sport of competitive Excel The opioid epidemic at sea Running away from a polygamous cult The art of worm grunting The complexities of using parents as content ...

“Go to Las Vegas to compete in the Excel World Championship” is the sort of assignment any tech-adjacent journalist dreams of getting. But few could pull it off the way David Pierce does for The Verge—with descriptive reporting, humor, and more than a little insight into how a spreadsheet program became arguably the most important piece of software...

In this inspirational story, Paige Kaptuch explores the life of Darlene Barlow Stubbs (a woman she has competed against in marathons without even knowing). Raised in an FDS community, which she later ran away from, Stubbs shows us how running can help to heal and build community. The route takes us on some back roads at the edge of town, revealing...

Krista Diamond reflects on the temporary housing she lived in while working at various national parks in the United States. Given her transience and impermanence in these spartan, often dilapidated spaces, she considers what it means to make a home for yourself. Sharing the landscape with the insects, mammals, and amphibians that inhabited these wilderness...

Last year, on June 18, 2023, the Titan submersible imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreckage, killing all five people on board, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. In this WIRED story, Mark Harris sheds light on the development of the company’s submersible technology and the events leading up to the tragedy, sharing information from internal...

The opioid epidemic has made fishing, already a dangerous job, even more deadly. When there’s an overdose at sea, fishermen have to take care of one another. C.J. Chivers examines how one man’s death in 2021, a mere 72 hours into his fishing career, may have prompted a sea change: Eight days after Brian Murphy died, Kelsey and a co-worker showed...