Kurt Hutton / Picture Post / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

This week, we’re sharing stories from Angella d’Avignon, Katie Englehart, Caitlin Dewey, Eric Benson, Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom. 

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1. The Mortician and the Murderer

Angella d’Avignon | Topic | March 21, 2019 | 15 minutes (3,783 words)

An incredible photo essay in which both the images and words tell the crazy story of imprisoned mortician David Sconce (up for parole in 2022). In the ’80s, Sconce turned his family’s California funeral home into a mass crematorium and black market body part- and organ-harvesting business.

2. Her Time

Katie Englehart | The California Sunday Magazine | March 20, 2019 | 30 minutes (7,500 words)

Sometimes the question was if. Usually, though, it was when. Debra said that she would kill herself before she lost herself completely. She would wait for as long as she could because she did not want to die, but she wouldn’t wait too long.

3. How Google’s Bad Data Wiped A Neighborhood off the Map

Caitlin Dewey | Medium | March 14, 2019 | 13 minutes (3,499 words)

The renaming of Buffalo, New York’s Fruit Belt neighborhood reveals as much about gentrification as it does the flawed ways tech companies add locations to their maps.

4. Buc-ee’s: The Path to World Domination

Eric Benson | Texas Monthly | March 1, 2019 | 24 minutes (6,100 words)

A Texas-proud pit stop that’s really more of a travel center that’s really more of a flawless oasis, Buc-ee’s — the nirvana of convenience stores, honored triply nationwide for having the cleanest bathrooms and the most gas pumps and the best food — might just be the Disneyland of American rest stops. But will Georgians and Floridians love it as much as Texans do?

5. Raising Really Good Hell for People Who Cannot

Roxane Gay, Tressie McMillan Cottom | Guernica Magazine | March 20, 2019 | 11 minutes (2,810 words)

The only thing better than an interview with writer, scholar, and Twitter luminary Tressie McMillan Cottom is an interview with McMillan Cottom where the interviewer is Roxane Gay.