Where the Trouble Started

In this personal essay, decades after a childhood sexual assault, Saidee Sonnenberg tries to make sense of what happened.

Source: Longreads
Published: Mar 6, 2019
Length: 13 minutes (3,467 words)

The Making of the Fox News White House

Trump’s friends are like family. And Trump hires his family.

Author: Jane Mayer
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Mar 11, 2019
Length: 45 minutes (11,453 words)

In Bad Taste

“Garishly food-styled heads of hollowed-out iceberg packed with pimiento cheese, or baked beans in aspic, bolster our own superior sense of ourselves. Like the Instagram freakshake, they are fantasy transgressions against which we define our superior awesomeness.”

Source: Topic
Published: Mar 5, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,605 words)

Turning Our Garden’s Bounty Into Community

In this moving installment of her Catapult column Backyard Politics, Christine H. Lee discovers equilibrium in sharing her farm’s bounty and in the beauty of simple, impromptu barter arrangements.

Source: Catapult
Published: Mar 5, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,451 words)

A Journey Into the Radical Art of Brain Injury Survivors

Every week, survivors of brain injuries come to the art studio at Headway East London to draw, sculpt, paint, and create the people they want to be now. Their experiences offer insight into the very nature of creativity.

Author: Joe Zadeh
Source: Vice Magazine
Published: Feb 28, 2019
Length: 18 minutes (4,503 words)

The Problem With Nostalgia

Michael Musto argues that wearing rose-colored glasses always leads to an unfair distortion — looking back on the best of the past while comparing it to the worst of the present.

Source: Longreads
Published: Mar 5, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,048 words)

Why Esquire’s March Cover is Sort of Dangerous

The news cycle means that Esquire‘s March cover story is already a half-dozen horrors ago, but that was the time needed for Patrick Nathan to produce this smart, searching exploration into the danger of false journalistic neutrality.

Published: Mar 4, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,346 words)

The First Dog Ascent of a 7,000-Meter Himalayan Peak

Does your heart require warming? Look no further than Mera, a very, very good dog.

Source: Outside
Published: Mar 3, 2019
Length: 7 minutes (1,920 words)

A Swimmer Saved by What She Lost

“Tormented by pain, Morgan Stickney made the agonizing decision to have her lower leg removed. The groundbreaking procedure may change the course of her life, and the future of amputations.”

Published: Mar 3, 2019
Length: 7 minutes (1,979 words)

Finding the Tune

Anton Webern’s Concerto, Opus 24 “would,” in pianist Mark Wallace’s words, “determine the course of my life.” Only years later did he understand why.

Published: Nov 10, 2018
Length: 18 minutes (4,619 words)