Carolyn Wells

A humorous, and occasionally painful, insight into the different masks that teachers must don to juggle their personal life with teaching a classroom of students every day. Gone are the gentle women who sing-song their way through carpet time and math stations—in their stead are screaming young women doing tequila shots. The patient middle school […]

This is a thought-provoking essay that examines how the rules about what could — and could not — be talked about in public, began to change. When did we first start to openly discuss what makes us who we are? Surely the book was too personal, Gunther’s publisher, Harper & Brothers, objected. Who would want […]

Sarah Resnick discovers that not everyone in the world of cryptocurrency is a “white Elon Musk type.” For many people, taking a gamble on coins is the only path they can see to escape. The point is not that people are leaving their abject and exploitative jobs for crypto, but that many wish they could, […]

Tim Judah compassionately documents the sheer resilience of those holding on in Irpin, Ukraine. A story that is being repeated in towns across the country. In the short term, simply not losing is winning for Ukraine, and that means Ukrainian morale is soaring. We see videos from small occupied towns of residents demonstrating in front […]

In this essay, Christian Wallace manages to deftly tell his life story through the memories he shares with his beloved 2005 GMC Sierra. My friends back home were impressed, maybe even a little jealous. It was the first truck many of us had ever sat in that had heated seats. When we’d make excursions to […]

Jessica Klein explores an interesting concept, that algorithms are rendering the expression “opposites attract” meaningless. The outsized cultural influence of social media – and its algorithms that connect people with similar beliefs – may be pushing daters even more towards those who share the same views and attitudes.

Abe Streep deftly takes us on a journey into the somewhat bizarre world of shed hunters — whose lives revolve around elk and deer antlers. Nearby, a coed group from Kansas was huddled around a pickup truck, where a twenty-seven-year-old Pfizer employee was holding court. He told his friends that he had run more than […]

An amazing story of perseverance and resiliance — “Cyborg Mike” has not let 12 broken bones, a dozen or so concussions, and the loss of a leg stop him from competing in the sports he loves. He had no idea that he’d keep stretching those goals until he would eventually refashion himself into a new […]

This essay concentrates on describing small details about the people caught up in the war in Ukraine — and there is an incredible poignancy in that. Two volunteer soldiers sat in a Volkswagen ahead of me, wearing uniforms cobbled together at army surplus. A man with ill-fitting fatigues and black boots stood next to one […]

In this gentle, yet satisfying essay, Drew Magary discovers that in accepting the limitations that age and injury can bring to a sport, joy can still be found in it. So I will ski again, despite my body and my southward migration doing their best to keep me off the mountain. I can’t ski as […]