Looking for love in all the wrong places? Zheping Huang attempts to find a wife at the Love and Marriage Expo in Shanghai, China.
Krista Stevens
Call and Response: Roxane Gay Reflects on Tragedy
Roxane Gay examines her own feelings on tragedy and atrocity and in doing so, helps us find compassion in grief and anger.
Coexisting With the Void: Simone Gorrindo on Chronic Pain
At Vela, Simone Gorrindo contemplates “the terrible thing that the slowness of pain gives you: time” in this meditation on how chronic illness affects the body and mind.
Terry Gross, National Interviewer: 40 Years of Fresh Air
In The New York Times Magazine Susan Burton profiles “national interviewer” Terry Gross, who celebrates 40 years behind the microphone as the host of NPR’s Fresh Air.
Chuck Klosterman on the Success of Taylor Swift, and the Word ‘Calculating’
If you don’t take Swift seriously, you don’t take contemporary music seriously. With the (arguable) exceptions of Kanye West and Beyoncé Knowles, she is the most significant pop artist of the modern age. The scale of her commercial supremacy defies parallel—she’s sold 1 million albums in a week three times, during an era when most […]
Pablo Escobar: Renaissance Man
As dusk settles on the Magdalena Valley, the jungly middle stretch of Colombia’s great river basin, the hippopotamuses bawl and snort. The indelicate groans of these multi-ton beasts border on comedic, but mostly their ruckus is a fearsome thing—a primal ritual that has churned these waters ever since Pablo Escobar imported four hippos to his […]
A Sort of Readiness: Ursula K. Le Guin
A conversation between two novelists — Choire Sicha chats with Ursula K. Le Guin.
Jenny Diski Remembers Doris Lessing: Why Can’t People Be Sensible?
Jenny Diski remembers Doris Lessing’s unemotional approach to motherhood and life.
Ravaged Yet Connected: New Orleans, Ten Years After Katrina
At Esquire, Charles P. Pierce reflects on the “boundless loss and endless opportunity” of New Orleans ten years after Hurricane Katrina.
The Palpable, Yet ‘Incomprehensible Expanse of Time’: A Wilderness of Waiting
I am used to pausing beside train trestles, tilting my head to watch passing planes, perpetually looking forward to: to the evening, to the weekend, to the next year in a new place. But for the first time I find myself unable to fix my gaze on the horizon; I find my relationship to time […]
