Letting Go of Her Game Face

[] If Melissa Johnson were to get a tattoo, it’d have a dart and the Rilke quote, “Live into the question.” Playing darts with a friend in San Francisco one time, Melissa realized that the harder she tried to hit the bullseye, the worse she got at doing it. “But that, I think, is my job as a writer,” she says. “not to get fixated on whether I’m hitting...

4d

Epic Love Stories & Secret Lives

[] Epic Love Stories  What does true love look like today? We’re seeking stories about finding love, losing love, re-finding love, re-losing it…you get the gist! These could be reported stories or first-person pieces. The most important thing is that your story has an in-depth narrative arc that traces the surprising and intriguing course of a one-of-a-kind...

6d

Our All-Time Favorite Narratively Memoirs

[] The Adventures of a Pakistani in Texas Story by Mariya Karimjee  A young woman from Karachi doesn’t discover how intense Islam can be…until moving to Texas. Is there anything more magnificently “American” than a massive Christmas tree towering above an ice rink in a Houston, Texas, shopping mall? To Mariya Karimjee, newly arrived from Karachi,...

6d

Narratively is Excited to Announce Our Debut Spring Memoir Prize!

[] Hi there! If you’ve got an extraordinary personal story to share, you’ve come to the right place. From April 27, 2022, through June 27, 2022, Narratively is accepting entries for our Spring 2022 Memoir Prize. We’re on the hunt for revealing and emotional first-person nonfiction narratives from unique and overlooked points of view — the best of which...

3w

Protected: Narratively Is Excited to Announce Our Debut Spring Memoir Prize! 

[] This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: The post Protected: Narratively Is Excited to Announce Our Debut Spring Memoir Prize!  appeared first on Narratively.

Apr 2022

The Hidden History of Marijuana

[] Weed. Cannabis. Pot. That smelly green stuff. Whatever you call it, you probably have an opinion on it. But where did weed come from? (Other than the ground, duh.) It wasn’t ’60s hippies who started the craze during the height of the counterculture. Cannabis was discovered way before Allen Ginsberg started preaching about it, and the long history...

Apr 2022

The Wild West Outpost of Japan’s Isolationist Era

[] The ragged procession made its way west from Kyoto and Osaka. At its center were 26 men and boys, harangued and humiliated as they were marched 400 miles through snow and rain, before arriving at the port of Nagasaki after a grueling month. There, on February 5, 1597, all 26 of them were taken to a hill overlooking the bay and crucified. Reports...

Apr 2022

Everyday I’m Hustlin’: Our 5 Best Stories on Innovative Entrepreneurs

[] 5. My Bizarre Reign as New York’s King of “Virgin Russian Hair” Story by Vijai Maheshwari Illustration by Ryan Raphael Complete strangers wiring me $15k on the spot, smuggling blond ponytails across the Atlantic, secret rendezvous under the overpass — I just may have had the weirdest side hustle of all time. 4. The Great Cottonmouth-Catching...

Apr 2022

The Detective Writer Who Hates Murder

[] W.M. Akers isn’t a fan of real-life murder, but he thinks a lot about how much people love fictional murder. “I think it’s very interesting how people tend to walk around agreeing that murder is a bad thing, but as soon as they sit down for fiction, they tend to become a lot more ambiguous about that,” Akers says.  Westside Lights, the third book...

Apr 2022

Reader-Submitted Mini Memoirs: High School Scandals

[] Narratively readers: You’ve told us for years that you want space to tell your own stories, so we’re trying something new. When we published My High School’s Secret Fantasy Slut League earlier this month we asked for your boldest, most unexpected high school scandals—in 500 words or less—and you delivered. Here are the mini memoirs we loved the most....

Apr 2022