Losing the News

The Charleston Gazette-Mail was known as the newspaper that used “sustained outrage” to hold the powerful accountable in West Virginia, a state with a legacy of corruption. Last year, the paper filed for bankruptcy and changed owners; its future as a watchdog remains unclear.

Published: Jul 23, 2019
Length: 25 minutes (6,333 words)

The Meaning Of All Caps—In Texting And In Life

“What’s cool about expressive lengthening is that, although it started as a very literal representation of longer sounds, it’s ended up creating a form of emotional expression that now has no possible spoken equivalent, making it more akin to its typographical cousins, all-caps and italics.”

Source: Wired
Published: Jul 23, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,003 words)

The weird magic of eiderdown

“In Iceland, the harvesting of these precious feathers has created a peculiar bond between human and duck. What can this unique relationship teach us?”

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jul 19, 2019
Length: 19 minutes (4,778 words)

My Life in Books: A Meditation on the Writer’s Library

All libraries are unique, but a writer’s books give a very personal look at their personality, their peculiarities, influences, and memories.

Source: Poets & Writers
Published: Jun 12, 2019
Length: 14 minutes (3,647 words)

Reading Lessons

You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 22, 2019
Length: 12 minutes (3,118 words)

The Crane Wife

Days after calling off her wedding, a writer travels to Texas to study the endangered whooping crane, and learns about the nature of need.

Author: CJ Hauser
Published: Jul 16, 2019
Length: 14 minutes (3,586 words)

The Man With the Golden Airline Ticket

“That’s what Dad’s AAirpass and ultra-elite flying status yielded for him: lifelong bonds.”

Source: Narratively
Published: Jul 22, 2019
Length: 36 minutes (9,129 words)

When to Throw a Goodbye Party

A personal essay in which Joy Notoma grapples with: saying goodbye to friends before a move, the complicated grief of shunning, and the way one parting can be a painful reminder of so many others.

Author: Joy Notoma
Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 19, 2019
Length: 14 minutes (3,746 words)

It Took Deputies 24 Hours to Find a Body in This California Jail. Its Problems Aren’t Fixed

California has set aside $2.1 billion in funding for construction projects to upgrade old jails, some of which have been branded as having “deplorable” conditions. But a majority of the projects have been delayed due to bureaucratic roadblocks and critical errors in planning. Meanwhile design flaws in the aging facilities have been contributing to deaths of inmates.

Published: Jul 17, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,000 words)

On Eve’s Temptation and the Monsters We Make of Hungry Women

In this first piece in a series about women in the Bible and social constructions of feminine power, Nina Li Coomes examines the story of the Garden of Eden: “I first began to think of Eve as a woman punished for hunger in college. At the time, I was a recovering Atheist relapsing into her own disordered eating patterns. One evening, I struck upon this epiphany while staring intensely through the crosshatch glass of my apartment’s oven, willing the verdant kabocha squash (lower calorie count than sweet potatoes) I’d placed there to roast faster.”

Source: Catapult
Published: Jul 15, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,725 words)