The Lucky Ones

In sharing the story of each of her tattoos and their meaning, journalist Adriana Gallardo — who was once an undocumented immigrant from Mexico — recounts her family’s hard won-luck at life in America, a luck they earned by back-breaking janitorial work and sheer determination.

Source: ProPublica
Published: Feb 19, 2019
Length: 13 minutes (3,261 words)

Class Dismissed

When she attends an elite private college on scholarship, Alison Stine discovers that education isn’t quite the equalizer she expected it to be.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 19, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,250 words)

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

Twenty-five years after Sven Birkerts published The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, which of his concerns now plague our digital world?

Published: Feb 8, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,180 words)

‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’ Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out

“It really never was my shame. It was the church’s shame. They’re the ones that should have the shame for what they have done to myself and many, many other L.G.B.T. people.”

Published: Feb 17, 2019
Length: 12 minutes (3,086 words)

The latest Instagram influencer frontier? Medical promotions.

Health care and medical sponsored content from influencers is growing on Instagram. But is it ethical?

Published: Feb 15, 2019
Length: 18 minutes (4,745 words)

White Witchery

“When I choose, anoint, and burn a candle with my prayers scratched into the wax, when I make my prayers material, I convince myself that I can grab onto a power that will carry me through this life.”

Published: Feb 14, 2019
Length: 14 minutes (3,697 words)

I Had a Late-Term Abortion. President Trump and Pro-Lifers Have No Right to Call Me a Murderer.

A reported personal essay in which Margot Finn writes about the late-term abortion she under went at 29 weeks after it was discovered her baby had a severe brain abnormality; the online support group she helps run for parents who have had abortions because of poor prenatal diagnoses or maternal health issues; and how members have been affected by the latest anti-abortion backlash.

Source: Slate
Published: Feb 7, 2019
Length: 18 minutes (4,737 words)

Magen David and Me

A personal essay in which, after facing persecution in the former Soviet Union and a new wave of antisemitism in the United States, Marya Zilberberg decides to put her Jewishness on display.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 15, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,886 words)

A Real Hot Mess: How Grits Got Weaponized Against Cheating Men

You have to seize power where you can find it. Some Black women found it in the pantry.

Source: Vice Magazine
Published: Feb 14, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,125 words)

‘If It Gets Me, It Gets Me’: The Town Where Residents Live Alongside Polar Bears

Churchill, Manitoba, is 1,000 miles north of Winnipeg. It’s connected to the rest of Canada only by rail, it clings firm to its arctic identity, it has a polar bear jail, and it’s worried that rising sea levels will change everything.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Feb 13, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,851 words)