This Fish House in Maine Is an Icon

But of what, exactly? On beauty, authenticity, and community in the Instagram age.

Source: Down East
Published: Dec 9, 2019
Length: 17 minutes (4,300 words)

Ghosts of the Future

A massive Canadian fossil trove reminds us how fleeting life on Earth can be—and how much peril we’re in.

Published: Dec 6, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,100 words)

New York City Paid McKinsey Millions to Stem Jail Violence. Instead, Violence Soared.

The corporate consulting firm reported bogus numbers and flailed in a project at Rikers Island. Today, assaults and other attacks there are up almost 50 percent.

Source: Pro Publica
Published: Dec 10, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,760 words)

The Age of Instagram Face

Jia Tolentino goes undercover into the world of plastic surgery, where everyone wants to look like an already-warped version of Kim Kardashian.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Dec 12, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,858 words)

‘This Is Small Talk Purgatory’: What Tinder Taught Me About Love

Just when she is about to give up on finding real human connection on a dating app, C.J. Hauser meets a mate — who stays in her life for a while.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Dec 7, 2019
Length: 13 minutes (3,408 words)

Will Lloyd Center Last Another Christmas? A Week Inside a Mall on the Edge

One of Portand, Oregon’s oldest shopping centers has gone from thriving to ragged. During the busiest shopping week of the year, two reporters spent time inside it to understand the decline and search for signs of hope.

Source: Willamette Week
Published: Dec 4, 2019
Length: 12 minutes (3,119 words)

Self-Portrait as a Human Interest Story

Emi Nietfeld considers an assortment of adversities that both hurt and buoyed her in her youth, and interrogates how the narrative of resilience minimizes suffering.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 11, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,834 words)

The Complicated, Problematic Influence of TripAdvisor Restaurant Reviews

“Despite its mediocre reputation in New York’s food world, Olio e Piú was busy in part because at the time, it was ranked the No. 1 restaurant in New York City — on TripAdvisor.”

Source: Eater
Published: Dec 5, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,475 words)

Books Are Not Products, They Are Bridges: Challenging Linear Ideas of Success in Literary Publishing

With five books to her name, an innovative author untangles the ways the white, patriarchal, capitalist publishing economy shapes authors’ sense of self-worth, literary identity, and inherited ideas about big versus small presses, and good versus break-out books.

Author: Janice Lee
Source: Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Published: Dec 4, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,488 words)

Under the Weather

Ash Sanders considers the heavy psychological cost of climate change and society-at-large’s strangely dismissive view of those who routinely make personal sacrifices in order to help the planet survive.

Source: The Believer
Published: Dec 2, 2019
Length: 27 minutes (6,836 words)