Making Something Out of Nothing With a Scratch and a Hope: The Ballad of Shovels and Rope By Krista Stevens Highlight “We had nothing to lose,” Cary Ann said. “Fuck it. Band. Family. Let’s give it a shot. . . . Handshake, spit on it. If it gets too nasty we’ll cut and run.”
N.K. Jemisin: ‘I am still going to write what I am going to write.’ By Krista Stevens Highlight Hells to the yes, says I.
Writing Emails to My Late Father By Krista Stevens Highlight “I’m writing my half of a dialogue that I know he would share with me if he could.”
We Use Language as a Spade By Krista Stevens Highlight “Though the embryo was only seven weeks old, I loved it. I loved it and wanted it, and its life ended.”
William Gibson on How Science Fiction Portrays Reality By Krista Stevens Highlight “Every fiction about the future is like an ice-cream cone,” Gibson says, “melting as it moves into the future.”
What Brings True Happiness: the Booze or the Bonding? By Krista Stevens Highlight “But there’s nothing wrong with a nudge toward examining the difference between what makes us happy and what is merely habitual.”
Elizabeth Wurtzel Made it Okay to Write ‘Ouch’ By Sari Botton Highlight Today’s memoirists and personal essay writers owe a debt of gratitude to the Prozac Nation author for rewriting an inhibiting rule.
How Bagel Makers’ Union Local 338 Beat NYC’s “Kosher Nostra” By Krista Stevens Highlight ‘“A bagel,” the newspaper of record explained in 1960, “is an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.”’
Finding Solace in the Charged Particles of the Aurora Borealis By Krista Stevens Highlight “Cree First Nations believe ‘the northern lights are dancing spirits of loved ones who have passed on.’”
Risking Everything for a Better Life By Krista Stevens Highlight Migrants looking for greater opportunity, safety, and freedom sometimes stow away in the wheel wells of jetliners in a bid to escape.
On Course for Certain Disaster By Krista Stevens Highlight “Ten Navy sailors were killed and scores more were injured. It was the Navy’s worst accident at sea in 40 years.” And it was all avoidable.
How Rob Krar Helps Others Outrun Depression By Krista Stevens Highlight “I think a good way to describe my depression is an inability to feel happiness. It’s just this gray zone. I have this beautiful life that I can’t appreciate.”
Who was Behind the First State-Sponsored Computer Attack? The Russians, Quelle Surprise By Krista Stevens Highlight “Don’t go screwing with information that belongs to innocent people!”
The Guy who Ordered a Hit On His Stepmother for $5 By Krista Stevens Highlight Death, delivered as per your instructions.
They Were Extortionists and the Calls Came from Inside the Prison By Krista Stevens Highlight “At least 442 service members across almost every branch of the armed forces had been conned—by prisoners—out of a total of more than half a million dollars.”
Telling About Auschwitz, Before It’s Too Late By Sari Botton Highlight His lover in Auschwitz helped him survive. Now he’s sharing his memories to help prevent the worst from happening again.
Naming the Psychological Effects of Climate Change: Solastalgia By Krista Stevens Highlight “The word he came up with was solastalgia, a portmanteau word of the Latin solus, which means ‘abandonment and loneliness,’ and nostalgia.”
‘The American People Have Been Constantly Lied To’ By Krista Stevens Highlight “U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.”
In Death, A Champion for Life Well Lived By Krista Stevens Highlight “She no longer feared death because she could hold it in her hands at any time.”
The Octopus’ Branding Makeover: From Devil-Fish to Brilliant Invertebrate By Krista Stevens Highlight “Each arm, with its own brain inside, moves completely independent of the others. So much so that arms have been known to steal food from each other.”
The Traffic Jam on Mount Everest that Cost 11 Lives By Krista Stevens Highlight “The crowd seemed incredible—like a bag of Skittles had been scattered down the slope.”
The Cobra in the Can and other Shenanigans at LAX By Krista Stevens Highlight And then there was the man “who tried strutting through security with 84 songbirds taped to his body.”
All Hail the Inventor of the Crock Pot: Irving Nachumsohn By Krista Stevens Highlight Irving Nachumsohn invented the crock pot so that his family didn’t have to use the stove to prepare dinner on hot summer evenings. You’re welcome.
Downsizing in the Shadow of Disaster By Catherine Cusick Highlight When housing markets price people out of safety, they cram into disasters waiting to happen.
The Adaptation of Language Evolution By Carolyn Wells Highlight Language has always changed, but the introduction of technology means it is adapting in ways we have never experienced before.
Willie Nelson’s 50-year Love Affair with Trigger, His Faithful Guitar By Krista Stevens Highlight “A guitar sounds better as it gets older, just like a Stradivarius does.”
Woman Writes Story Challenging Gender Dynamics; Is Thwarted by…Long-Standing Gender Dynamics By Sari Botton Highlight How can we combat sexism in publishing if we’re so worried about damaging the reputations of offending men?
How Mister Rogers Found Inspiration in the Everyday By Krista Stevens Highlight ‘“I think that how we were first loved — or not — has a great deal to do with what we create and how,” Fred once told me.’
It Was Putin, on British Soil, Using his Poison Factory By Krista Stevens Highlight Trying to keep a mouthy Russian oligarch safe from Vladimir Putin is harder than it looks. Especially when the oligarch has a penchant for publicly poking the bear.
The Living Nightmare of Homeownership By Catherine Cusick Highlight The manmade dream of owning a home wasn’t built on a solid foundation.
