The King of Dreams

A Texas con artist made millions promising prisoners’ families the thing they wanted most: To bring their children home.

Published: Aug 1, 2019
Length: 25 minutes (6,300 words)

“We Have Fire Everywhere”

For eight hours last fall, Paradise, California, became a zone at the limits of the American imagination—and a preview of the American future.

Published: Jul 31, 2019
Length: 43 minutes (10,800 words)

America’s Thirst for Crime

A dispatch from CrimeCon, where families and victims of violence collide with the public’s obsession with murder.

Published: Jul 30, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,000 words)

One Day, One City, No Relief

For this story, 36 San Francisco Chronicle reporters spent a 24-hour period meeting members of San Francisco’s homeless community in the shelters, the streets, and on public transit to help paint a portrait of the city’s growing homelessness crisis. From the chronically homeless — those who have lived on the streets for more than a year — to young families struggling to get by in a city with skyrocketing rents, to students living in vans to get through school and military veterans seeking peace from their demons, this disparate group of people share a goal: to satisfy their basic needs for food, shelter, and safety on a consistent basis.

Published: Jul 31, 2019
Length: 37 minutes (9,371 words)

Murder in the Moroccan Mountains

What happens when a small tourist hub is suddenly made strange by violence?

Source: Outside
Published: Jul 29, 2019
Length: 18 minutes (4,500 words)

How to Save a Loggerhead

Voldemort was not an amenable turtle, at first. He thrashed his right front flipper in defiance at the humans who wanted to touch him as he held his injured left flipper close to his body. He craned his head over his shoulder, his mouth open, and his eyes seemed to squint in frustration. “He was starving,” Boylan said, “and he was really pissed off.”

Source: Garden & Gun
Published: Aug 1, 2019
Length: 13 minutes (3,300 words)

On Silence (or, Speak Again)

Elissa Bassist breaks her silence about everything she’s not supposed to talk about and comes out alive.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 1, 2019
Length: 26 minutes (6,529 words)

Broken Teeth and All

“Teeth. Teeth. Teeth. So many other traumas — Men. Money. Electric fences. — but always, always teeth.”

Source: Gay Magazine
Published: Jul 23, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,182 words)

Boar Wars: How Wild Hogs Are Trashing European Cities

Come to Europe for the Grand Tour! See the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, the Sagrada Familia, and the newest addition, a colony of wild boars holding up traffic.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jul 30, 2019
Length: 21 minutes (5,329 words)

Take Me Away

For the love of Mariah Carey.

Source: The New Inquiry
Published: Jul 29, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,948 words)