Open House

As his neighbors pass from health problems and old age, relinquishing formerly rent-controlled apartments to monied young people, writer Jeremiah Moss remembers and mourns the simple intimacies that passed among the colorful tenants of his East Village apartment building.

Source: n+1
Published: Jan 17, 2020
Length: 26 minutes (6,663 words)

In My Father’s Final Year, He Was Not My Father

“He’s lied to me and taken my money. It is the quietest moment in our relationship, a shame I know he’ll never come back from. I send him a photo of me standing in a foot of snow. He texts back a fiery sunset. I tell myself this is the only way he can keep talking to me, the only way he can bear me.”

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Jan 24, 2020
Length: 15 minutes (3,882 words)

Inside the Spectacular Implosion at the Romance Writers of America

As the book publishing industry changed, the roles that the Romance Writers of America played becama less clear, and the organization’s troubled relationship with inclusion and intersectionality became increasingly problematic.

Source: Jezebel
Published: Jan 15, 2020
Length: 24 minutes (6,196 words)

The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias

“As so-called intentional communities proliferate across the country, a subset of Americans is discovering the value of opting out of contemporary society.”

Published: Jan 16, 2020
Length: 14 minutes (3,607 words)

At Mrs. Balbir’s

Jillian Dunham traveled thousands of miles from home to get away from her grief. It found her anyway, in a stranger’s Bangkok apartment.

Published: Jan 27, 2020
Length: 12 minutes (3,036 words)

How ‘West Side Story’ Was Reborn

Inside the wildly ambitious effort to reimagine the classic musical for 2020.

Published: Jan 22, 2020
Length: 34 minutes (8,650 words)

What Was Going Wrong With My Pregnancy?

As a mother-to-be discovered in her distress, much of prenatal medicine is still a mystery.

Published: Jan 24, 2020
Length: 8 minutes (2,053 words)

Inking Against Invisibility

In the face of chronic pain, invisible illness, and medical discrimination, Talia Hibbert turned to tatoos to reclaim ownership of her body.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 24, 2020
Length: 8 minutes (2,102 words)

In Defense of Boris the Russki

Ayşegül Savaş calls into question a kind of racism in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and laments the liberal reluctance to rebuke discrimination outright, regardless of its targets.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 22, 2020
Length: 14 minutes (3,603 words)

The Mysterious Lawyer X

Nicola Gobbo defended Melbourne’s most notorious criminals at the height of a 
gangland war. They didn’t know she had a secret.

Published: Jan 16, 2020
Length: 48 minutes (12,100 words)