The Ladder Up

“The term “inner city” has never provided an accurate map of racialized urban poverty—what’s inner about a geography that drifts with the people it stigmatizes?—but I’ve always found it vaguely spiritual, as if the city carries a secret close to its heart, and only poor people are privy to it.”

Source: VQR
Published: Dec 2, 2019
Length: 25 minutes (6,460 words)

Even If You Can’t See It: Invisible Disability and Neurodiversity

Bipolar disorder leaves one talented creative writing professor facing the ways a life can break down and get put back together, especially in academia.

Source: Kenyon Review
Published: Jan 1, 2019
Length: 20 minutes (5,003 words)

At War with the Truth

“A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

Published: Dec 9, 2019
Length: 25 minutes (6,332 words)

How Roadkill Became an Environmental Disaster

The vast network of roads carved into Brazil’s sensitive ecosystems improve citizens’ quality of life, but it threatens countless species and the country’s biodiversity, few more than the giant anteater. As scientists develop the growing field of road ecology and grapple with ways to protect biodiversity, they face the larger problem: How can humans protect anything when we keep building new roads?

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 26, 2019
Length: 20 minutes (5,179 words)

The Long-Forgotten Vigilante Murders of the San Luis Valley

How racist policies and disenfranchisement helped send two settlers on a killing spree in Colorado Territory.

Source: 5280 Magazine
Published: Dec 1, 2019
Length: 21 minutes (5,394 words)

Where Are the Gay Ladies of Cambodia?

Honeymooning in Cambodia, Lindsey Danis and her wife seek refuge in queer spaces, but struggle to find the acceptance granted to male travelers.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 9, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,081 words)

How Two Housekeepers Took On the President — and Revealed that His Company Employed Undocumented Immigrants

An investigative piece about two women who brought to light that, even as President Trump was campaigning and governing on a platform of deporting undocumented immigrants, he was employing many of them. A number of undocumented workers who were employed by the Trump organization, at golf courses and resorts like Mar-a-Lago, took great risks in speaking to reporters. Many of them have lost their jobs and suffered various consequences.

Published: Dec 4, 2019
Length: 19 minutes (4,857 words)

The Champion Who Picked a Date to Die

How Belgian gold-medal winning paralympic sprinter Marieke Vervoort gained the ultimate control over a debilitating and painful degenerative muscle condition that began when she was a teen with a tingling sensation in her feet.

Author: Andrew Keh
Published: Dec 5, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,072 words)

The Stars at Night

Texas has some of the country’s highest nighttime light emission, and concenred Texans are working hard to save their night skies from the effects of light pollution.

Source: Texas Highways
Published: Dec 1, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,687 words)

What Shattered My Mother’s Mind

Winston Ross recalls the heartbreaking ordeal his family endured after his mother’s routine surgery led to post-operative delirium.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 6, 2019
Length: 21 minutes (5,290 words)