“Sheltered in her bedroom during World War II, Rita Levi-Montalcini discovered how the nervous system is wired.
Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Cheri has been an editor at Longreads since 2014.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Ancient Potato of the Future
“The Four Corners potato has sustained Indigenous people in the American Southwest for 11,000 years; USDA is now studying its 8-year shelf life, and its resistance to disease, heat, and drought. The future of this remarkable little potato remains unwritten.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
“They Took Us Away From Each Other”: Lost Inside America’s Shadow Foster System
“It would take years before Molly and Heaven would learn that neither of them was ever in the foster system. Instead, caseworkers had diverted them to what some scholars call ‘hidden foster care’ or ‘shadow foster care,’ in which the legal protections of the formal system disappear.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Abortion I Didn’t Have
“I would never give my son back, for anything, but I would certainly give him a different mother.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Am I Even Fit To Be a Mom?’ Diaper Need Is An Invisible Part of Poverty in America
“Parents cannot use federal aid to pay for diapers, and are often forced to come up with other solutions, using maxi pads or towels to keep their children clean and dry. In rural America where aid is even harder to access, tiny diaper banks are the only lifeline.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘They Become Our Family’: US Farming Couple Rescues Afghans
“Clarin has helped get five of her former employees and their families into the U.S. since 2017, while her wife has helped them rebuild their lives in America.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Did a Legendary Trout Really Ride the Rails from California to Missouri?
“Scientists use DNA to solve genetic puzzles in waters around the world. But in Crane Creek, the mystery got deeper.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Elephant Who Could Be a Person
“In the courts, elephant personhood is a keystone argument, the argument on which all other animal-rights and even environmental arguments could conceivably depend.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
“I Feel Like a Survivor”: Inside the Funeral Industry’s 2021 National Convention
“After a busy year, morticians let loose at their annual gathering in Nashville.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Keanu Reeves Knows the Secrets of the Universe
“Guy’s always working—sixty-eight movies in thirty-five years. Playing killing machines, doofuses, romantics, messiahs, and devils. But always Keanu. Which always means something more.”