How Motherhood Affects Creativity
Despite the very American idea that the artistic impulse and the parenting impulse are fundamentally opposed, writer and mother Erika Hayasaki looks at science and mothers’ experience for the truth: That becoming a mother makes many women more, not less, creative.
End Pain Forever
Steven Pete has a rare neurological condition that makes him unable to feel pain. Pam Costa has the opposite neurological condition — she feels pain constantly, as if her body is on fire. They both share a genetic link that has helped scientists understand why we experience pain and how to treat it.
Traces of Times Lost
One journalist and parent explores the elusive nature of early memory, the ways children’s minds work, and why certain information does not stay with us, but still has a profound impact.
In a Perpetual Present
Susie McKinnon has a severely deficient autobiographical memory, which means she can’t remember details about her past—or envision what her future might look like.
A Criminal Mind
How a respected psychiatrist and loving father and husband became an uncaring drug dealer.
Buried Alive in a Grain Silo
Four years ago, Erika Hayasaki learned about the death of two young men in a corn grain bin accident in the Midwest. Over the next two years, while pregnant and later with her then-six-month-year-old daughter and husband in tow, she left her life in Los Angeles to visit Mount Carroll, Illinois, population 1,700, to capture the story. The following is an excerpt from Hayasaki’s story, Drowned By Corn, which describes the lives of the young workers before the accident.
Life of a Police Officer: Medically and Psychologically Ruinous
The intensely challenging job of law enforcement is linked to many health issues. Erika Hayasaki met a former officer who tried to protect her high school friend and learned the effect her death had on him:
Police officer Brian Post recognized the 16-year-old girl lying face down in the grass at the Whispering Pines apartment complex in Lynnwood, Washington. He had gotten to know her in recent weeks, helping her obtain a restraining order against her abusive ex-boyfriend. Now, here was Sangeeta Lal, unconscious, with two bullets in her chest.
