Etta or Bessie or Dora or Rose

From Elisa Albert’s acclaimed 2006 collection, the infamous short story that turned Philip Roth’s playbook inside out.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 24, 2018
Length: 22 minutes (5,706 words)

The High Price of Being a #MeToo Whistleblower

Tricia Romano considers what speaking out about abuse at the hands of Eric Schneiderman has cost a close friend.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 23, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,770 words)

Gun Violence’s Distant Echo

Gillette, Wyoming is a place where “the high school yearbook devoted four pages to ‘Hunting: No Greater Sport,'” a local club funds “college scholarships by raffling off AR-15s,” and popular slogans include, “Welcome to Wyoming: Consider Everyone Armed.” Mariah Engdahl, age 16 — a girl surrounded by gun enthusiasts in her family and in her boom-and-bust community — educated herself on gun laws in Wyoming and, as a one-teen protest on gun control, delivered a speech to the Campbell County school board in a bid to avoid arming teachers in her county’s schools.

Author: Eli Saslow
Source: Washington Post
Published: May 18, 2018
Length: 17 minutes (4,287 words)

The Guardians of Ghost Town

Longtime West Oakland resident Annette Miller has witnessed the dramatic transformation of the city as changes over the past few decades have swept the block she’s lived on for over 50 years.

Published: May 22, 2018
Length: 9 minutes (2,442 words)

Peter Stories

Honoring Peter Mayer, founder of Overlook Press, one of “the stars of book publishing,” a person who trusted young staffers to take risks and break free of big publishing’s conventions as they learned the ropes, and who yelled a lot.

Source: n+1
Published: May 18, 2018
Length: 9 minutes (2,330 words)

Blood Will Tell, Part One

Mickey Bryan’s, husband, a beloved high school principal, was charged with killing her. Did he do it, or had there been a terrible mistake?

Source: ProPublica
Published: May 23, 2018
Length: 43 minutes (10,897 words)

What Happened in Vegas

Las Vegas has long been more of a metaphor than a city, a place to lose yourself — or at least lose your money. But now also it’s a city tied up with a new identity of death and mourning, a city that is #VegasStrong. “The city passed all the expected emotions to pivot to strength,” writes Amanda Fortini. “What about #VegasSad, they joked, or #VegasAngry, or #VegasDepressed?”

Published: May 21, 2018
Length: 31 minutes (7,805 words)

The New Passport-Poor

Drawing borders around people might give us a more orderly and predictable world. But for all the promised benefits of a frictionless experience of journeying, it may not be a more humane one.

Published: May 21, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,652 words)

Die Like a Dog

Pet dogs often have a peaceful death that forestalls protracted suffering and pain. Why can’t we do the same for humans?

Source: Aeon
Published: May 15, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,988 words)

Ira Glass’s Commencement Speech at the Columbia Journalism School Graduation

Ira Glass challenges young journalists to tear up old models and find new ways to fight the “massive machine churning out non-factual stories” and come up with “new ideas about how to reach people and what to reach them with.”

Author: Ira Glass
Published: May 17, 2018
Length: 22 minutes (5,503 words)