The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids By Katy Kelleher Feature Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.
When the Dishes Are Done, I Wonder About Progress By Sarah Rose Haas Feature In “Coventry,” Rachel Cusk draws a connection between politeness and narrative death, rudeness and tragedy, storytelling and war.
How to Survive a Vivisection By Rachel Somerstein Feature After a traumatic experience with childbirth, Rachel Somerstein struggles to bond with her newborn daughter.
The (Loud) Soundtrack to My Struggle with Faith By Anna Gazmarian Feature After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Anna Gazmarian grapples with her evangelical upbringing, and finds solace in screamo music.
It’s Time To Talk About Solar Geoengineering By Longreads Feature We need to start talking about seemingly drastic approaches to the climate crisis, such as sun-dimming aerosols, right now — or we risk losing democratic control of the process.
Queens of Infamy: Njinga By Anne Thériault Feature The Portuguese colonizers of West Central Africa learned it the hard way: you mess with the Queen of Ndongo and Matamba at your own peril.
Why Karen Carpenter Matters By Longreads Feature For one brown, queer Filipino-American, Karen Carpenters’ music anchored her to her musical family’s past while helping chart her path in their adopted Southern California.
Hello, Forgetfulness; Hello, Mother By Max Feature Peering into the mirror of her mother, Marcia Aldrich wonders whether she too is sentenced to dementia.
These Boys and Their Fathers By Don Waters Feature Trying to form some connection to the father who abandoned him, an outdoorsman surfs the California beach where his father grew up, while looking for answers in the autobiography his father left behind.
A Single Sentence By Longreads Feature In an clandestinely written memoir, a jailed Turkish novelist and political dissident remembers the single sentence that changed everything at the moment of his arrest.
The Girl I Didn’t Save By Longreads Feature Cameron Dezen Hammon reflects on her frustrations as a Christian music minister for the terminally ill, unable to heal a cancer patient she cared for, and struggling to be compassionate at her belligerent Jewish father’s bedside.
“We’re All Still Cooking…Still Raw at the Core”: An Interview with Jacqueline Woodson By Adam Morgan Feature “When I look at that dress and how much intention went into the making of it…it’s like we want to have something that can’t be destroyed, because so much of the past has been destroyed…”
Grow Up By Soraya Roberts Feature Being an adult at the end of the world means listening to children tell the truths grown-ups refuse to actually hear.
Mathematics as a Cultural Force By Jessica Gross Feature Historian Amir Alexander on Euclidean geometry’s far-reaching effects.
To Love and Protect Each Other — From Bigotry By Jay Deitcher Feature After Jay Deitcher sits silent as his wife is verbally assaulted by his father’s racist friend, he grapples with the ways his family has been muted by trauma.
Climate Messaging: A Case for Negativity By Rebecca McCarthy Feature Nell Zink, Joy Williams, and a different kind of climate skepticism.
What Should Universal Basic Income Look Like? By Livia Gershon Feature Andrew Yang made it news, but we need a better plan.
Shelved: The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s “Brain Opera” By Tom Maxwell Feature What happens when you’re not different just for the sake of being different.
‘People Can Become Houses’ By Danielle Jackson Feature In her debut memoir, Sarah Broom builds her “obsession” with her family home — destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina — into a story of how families decide who they are, how they got here, and how they reconstruct themselves over and over again.
The Bread Thread By Emily Weitzman Feature Emily Weitzman condemns the persistence of slut shaming over different stages in her life, and combats it with humor and…bread.
Grandiose and Claustrophobic: ‘Prozac Nation’ Turns 25 By Anne Thériault Feature Elizabeth Wurtzel’s bestseller is deeply rooted in a specific, Gen-X cultural moment. Can it still speak to us in 2019?
Where Am I? By Longreads Feature After a lifetime of alienation, one woman discovered how her spacial disorientation could be a gift that connected her to strangers and made her less alone.
How to Predict the Unpredictable By Katie Gutierrez Feature After the death of her dog, Katie Gutierrez grapples with the ripple effects of her decisions — and how to live with uncertainty as a mother.
Downsizing the American Black Middle Class By Bryce Covert Feature Government jobs helped thousands of Black families move into the middle class. Now, increasing calls for government privatization are pushing them back out.
Cahiers du Post-Cinéma By Soraya Roberts Feature The movie theater was once a kind of lay church, with festivals like TIFF serving as annual religious holidays — until new houses of worship opened online.
The Art of Acceptance Speech Giving By Michael Musto Feature Michael Musto looks back at some of the best, worst, and weirdest instances of performers expressing gratitude as they received their shiny trophies.
Regarding the Interpretation of Others By Patrick Nathan Feature When attempting to write a review of the official Susan Sontag biography, our reviewer finds himself on shaky ground after learning new information about the author.
Cut From the Same Cloth By Myfanwy Tristram Feature Artist Myfanwy Tristram was irritated by her teenage daughter’s extreme fashions — until she took an illustrated journey into their origins.
Keeping My Promise to Popo By Anne Liu Kellor Feature As Anne Liu Kellor says goodbye to her Chinese grandmother in the hospital, she taps into buried memories and family trauma.