A Brutal Clock

On how “fighter parents” like Amber Olsen (parents whose children have rare diseases) are getting scientists and profit-hungry pharmaceutical companies to do research, conduct clinical trials, and develop treatments for life-threatening, yet little-known ailments. How do they do it? With sheer determination and unrelenting superhuman efforts to raise money and awareness for their child’s cause.

Source: HuffPost
Published: Oct 26, 2018
Length: 30 minutes (7,547 words)

This 12-Step Group Meets in the Basement of a Fetish Shop

Alcoholics Anonymous has numbers special-interest recovery groups. When people in the BDSM community needed to speak as openly about kink as their addiction, they started their own group: Recovery in the Lifestyle, or RitL.

Author: Aly Tadros
Source: Narratively
Published: Oct 24, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,058 words)

Color Vision

Hilton Als’ 2010 profile of poet and playwright Ntozake Shange, who died this past Saturday at age 70.

Author: Hilton Als
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 8, 2010
Length: 21 minutes (5,448 words)

My Father Says He’s a ‘Targeted Individual.’ Maybe We All Are

When Jean Guerrero’s father told her that the CIA was monitoring him, she didn’t dismiss him as sick or crazy. She investigated his claims the way a journalist should, and she began to see our digital world very differently.

Source: Wired
Published: Oct 25, 2018
Length: 24 minutes (6,154 words)

The First Time I Moved to New York

The fantasies Alexander Chee had of New York before he moved there didn’t fully prepare him for what it was like to love the city.

Source: Longreads
Published: Oct 29, 2018
Length: 9 minutes (2,448 words)

The Boy Who Wasn’t My Boyfriend

In this personal essay, Allie Zenwirth falls in love within the confines of an all-male Chasidic school.

Source: Longreads
Published: Oct 26, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,360 words)

What the Hell Happened to Darius Miles?

The former NBA player opens up about his mental health issues and shares some stories about what it was like to be an 18-year-old meeting Michael Jordan and suddenly earning millions in Los Angeles.

Published: Oct 24, 2018
Length: 26 minutes (6,600 words)

The Unsolved Murder of an Unusual Billionaire

Everyone in Canadian high society knew the Shermans, who owned a lucrative generic drug company and were some of the country’s most active philanthropists. But Barry Sherman also sued a lot of people, battled his cousins, made questionable business relationships, didn’t use a bodyguard, and kept their one home security camera off.

Published: Oct 24, 2018
Length: 26 minutes (6,568 words)

The Weight of a Nickel

At Virginia Quarterly Review, Sarah Smarsh looks at the high price of the American Dream through the lens of her upbringing as a member of a working poor farm family in Kansas.

Source: VQR
Published: Oct 8, 2018
Length: 21 minutes (5,426 words)

How to Burn a Book

In an excerpt from “The Library Book” — inspired by a historic California library fire — Susan Orlean challenges her respect for the printed word with a match and a copy of ‘Fahrenheit 451.’

Source: Longreads
Published: Oct 25, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,525 words)