High Tide of Heartbreak

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes (Elliot, A Soldier’s FugueWater by the Spoonful, In the Heights) reflects on how the narrow aesthetics of legacy theatre institutions have hurt her health, her heart, and her career.

Published: Sep 27, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,041 words)

Physicians Get Addicted Too

“Lou Ortenzio was a trusted West Virginia doctor who got his patients—and himself—hooked on opioids. Now he’s trying to rescue his community from an epidemic he helped start.”

Published: Apr 22, 2019
Length: 21 minutes (5,304 words)

Send in the Clones

A rogue group called the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is moving cuttings and seeds from California’s ancient sequoia north to Oregon to save the species from the coming effects of climate change. But should they? Maybe in a world faced with global environmental disaster, the old rules no longer apply.

Source: The Believer
Published: Apr 1, 2019
Length: 23 minutes (5,919 words)

Ariana and the Lesbian Narcissus

A self-described “heritage lesbian artifact” ponders her attraction to a certain sexy GIF and finds not only titillation, but another commercial product in what she calls the “off-shoot of the ‘non-lesbian’ genre of cultural production,” where non-lesbians play the part in “a visual culture that celebrates lesbianism only insofar as it’s packaged as an isolated sexual act, an unexpected twist to the plot-line.”

Published: Apr 1, 2019
Length: 13 minutes (3,301 words)

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind

Rachel Kushner profiles scholar and prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore.

Published: Apr 17, 2019
Length: 33 minutes (8,258 words)

The Revolution…Without Prince

A personal essay in which, hoping to reconnect to their love for the iconic musician, Kevin Sampsell and an old girlfriend go to hear his best known band play without him.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 19, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,777 words)

Reading ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ in Baghdad

A beautiful meditation on Kurt Vonnegut and the trauma of war.

Source: Washington Post
Published: Apr 13, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,000 words)

I get one last Lent with my Mami. I’m using it to learn our family’s capirotada recipe

As his mother enters hospice care, Gustavo Arellano pays tribute to her life and to her cooking, trying to preserve the memory of his favorite dish.

Published: Apr 18, 2019
Length: 6 minutes (1,602 words)

Guantánamo’s Darkest Secret

“Instead, he began to wonder whether what he was actually protecting at Guantánamo was one of the government’s darkest secrets: that its highest-value military detainee was being held essentially by mistake, and that his isolation in Echo Special was intended to cover up the hell that had been inflicted upon him.”

Author: Ben Taub
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 15, 2019
Length: 78 minutes (19,519 words)

What Cancer Takes Away

As she goes through treatment for breast cancer, Anne Boyer considers what being sick has cost her — physically, financially and emotionally — along with the societal and environmental costs of high-priced treatments.

Author: Anne Boyer
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 8, 2019
Length: 19 minutes (4,866 words)