The Battle Over Teaching Chicago’s Schools About Police Torture and Reparations By Peter C. Baker Feature A little-known city law has educators figuring out how to talk to eighth and tenth grade students about the history of Chicago police abuse.
Behind the Writing: On Research By Sarah Menkedick Feature Sarah Menkedick speaks with Leslie Jamison, Carina Chocano, and Elena Passarello on the art of research.
To Compromise With the Facts of Living By Bradley Babendir Feature In Elizabeth McCracken’s new novel “Bowlaway,” the past and future are mysteriously entangled.
Stalin’s Scheherazade By Longreads Feature An opportunistic literary caper became a lifelong con — with no possibility of escape.
The Precarity of Everything: On Millennial (Blacks and) Blues By Danielle Jackson Feature Reniqua Allen — the author of It Was All a Dream: A New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America — on Black millennials, millennial burnout, and hope in a time of uncertainty.
‘I Spent Two Years Researching Before I Wrote a Single Line’: Geeking Out With Marlon James By Adam Morgan Feature Man Booker winner Marlon James immersed himself in African myths and history, so he could use that world as a springboard for a new fantasy series.
Lean On By Longreads Feature A declaration of dependence, excerpted from Briallen Hopper’s new essay collection.
Every Day I Write the Book By Michael Musto Feature At 63, Michael Musto reveals how he keeps managing to add new chapters to the consistently unfolding story of his career.
‘I Knew It Was Not My Correct Life, Because It Asked Me To Mute My Voice.’ By Jane Ratcliffe Feature Reema Zaman on deciding she would no longer live to please men, and how women’s self-esteem and self-love is a revolutionary act of dissent.
What Gwyneth Paltrow and Great Expectations Taught Me about the Male Gaze By saralouisey Feature Sara Petersen explores the origin of her desire to perform a certain type of femininity, and how the performance ultimately led her to pursue motherhood as a path to purpose.
The Lost Boys of #MeToo By Soraya Roberts Feature When we hear “sexual abuse” we think “women and girls.” But Hollywood’s boy actors are suffering in a different way.
Almost Undefeated: The Forgotten Football Upset of 1976 By Britni de la Cretaz Feature How the Toledo Troopers, the most dominant female football team of all time, met their match.
A Second Passport By Pam Mandel Feature Normally, kibbutz volunteers visit Israel and return home. Pam Mandel went on to Egypt, and kept going . . .
The Paths of Rhythm By Longreads Feature A Tribe Called Quest’s pioneering music is one of many filaments that connects Americans of color with each other now and back through time.
Accidental Music History: How Jeff Gold Saved Rare Iggy & the Stooges Recordings from the Dump By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Sometimes this is how musical history gets saved.
The Cabin By Lavinia Spalding Feature In a tiny, remote Utah town, Lavinia Spalding learns the difference between longing and belonging.
‘I Inherited Luck’: Bridgett M. Davis on Her Family’s Life in the Numbers By Sheila McClear Feature In a new memoir, novelist Bridgett M. Davis reveals that her mother was a Numbers operator in Detroit from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Forming Relationships with the Road: An Interview with Tom Zoellner By Aaron Gilbreath Feature The right tour guide can breathe life into the most boring stretch of highway.
How Diderot’s Encyclopedia Challenged the King By Longreads Feature The encyclopedists’ plan to catalog knowledge seemed harmless enough. But what they intended was far more subversive: to restructure knowledge itself.
Edward Gorey: A Highly Conjectural Man By Bridey Heing Feature When asked if there was “anything people don’t understand” about him, Gorey responded: “Yes. No. Yes. No.” A new biography by Mark Dery attempts to sort myth from reality.
Shelved: Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine By Tom Maxwell Feature How the songwriter’s abandoned third album became two albums.
Elegy in Times Square By Lily Burana Feature A former teenage peep show girl looks back on a queer love story that began in New York’s notorious red-light district.
The Classroom Origins of Toxic Masculinity By Soraya Roberts Feature It’s a relatively new term for a concept as old as time.
Pam Houston on Coming Clean, Climate Change, and ‘Writing Deeply Into the Grasses’ By Kim Steutermann Rogers Feature Pam Houston’s new memoir is an ode to her beloved ranch, but also deals directly with the harrowing moments of childhood abuse that her fictional characters have been living through for years.
What Falls to Earth By Susanna Space Feature Grieving the mysterious death of her father, Susanna Space seeks refuge in the study of meteors.
What He Left Behind By Kira Martin Feature Kira Martin struggles through her connection – both emotional and physical – with her troubled and destructive son.
Chimayó By Longreads Feature Esmé Weijun Wang discovers a new interpretation of faith while on two kindred pilgrimages: one to find an accurate medical diagnosis, one to a sacred site in New Mexico.
The Weather and the Wall By Will Meyer Feature Climate change and the border wall are more connected than you might think.