How a Stroke Turned a 63-Year-Old Into a Rap Legend

For stroke survivor Sherman Hershfield, rapping and rhyming kept his seizures under control.

Author: Jeff Maysh
Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jan 16, 2019
Length: 18 minutes (4,683 words)

How a Career Criminal Broke the Convict Code and Saved Himself

In USP Florence, the most violent prison in the U.S. federal prison system, rats don’t live long and they don’t die peacefully. But Wayne Byerly talked, and lived — and found redemption.

Source: Westword
Published: Jan 10, 2019
Length: 47 minutes (11,920 words)

Of Blackness and “Beauty”

At an art exhibit exploring black models through Western art, Morgan Jerkins finds historical evidence of the white supremacist definitions of beauty Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom identifies in Thick: and Other Essays.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 16, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,731 words)

How Tarell Alvin McCraney Moved from ‘Moonlight’ to Broadway

Carvell Wallace profiles the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose ‘Choir Boy’ opened last week at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

Published: Jan 15, 2019
Length: 23 minutes (5,799 words)

Creating While Clean

Musicians Steven Tyler, Ben Harper, Joe Walsh, and others speak with candor about their journeys to sobriety and how they are in much better places, personally and creatively.

Source: GQ
Published: Jan 15, 2019
Length: 57 minutes (14,379 words)

Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?

The science that linked Vitamin D with certain ailments was incorrect. Unfortunately, many of us have spent too long popping D pills while shielding ourselves from the healthy thing we need to consume: sunlight.

Source: Outside
Published: Jan 10, 2019
Length: 12 minutes (3,238 words)

Disneyland with my invisible guest

At 33, Tabitha Blankenbiller believed she didn’t want any children, until — unexpectedly — she got pregnant.

Source: Salon
Published: Jan 13, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,103 words)

Life, Death, and Insulin

As the cost of the lifesaving medication skyrockets, some desperate diabetics are rationing — and risking their lives. Was Alec Raeshawn Smith one of them?

Source: Washington Post
Published: Jan 13, 2019
Length: 20 minutes (5,200 words)

Astrology Year Zero

“For the hardcore enthusiast, with the software and the charts, astrology seemed at most an intricate hobby, convertible to modest profit at only the highest level, like translating Scandinavian languages or freelance writing.”

Source: The Baffler
Published: Jan 14, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,922 words)

Foreign Bodies

Immigration law isn’t keeping up with reproductive technology — it’s hamstringing the citizenship rights of children not born to married, fertile, heterosexual parents, and showing us that marriage equality in the U.S. isn’t equal in all ways.

Author: Raj Telhan
Source: VQR
Published: Dec 13, 2018
Length: 26 minutes (6,739 words)