Your Stoke Won’t Save Us

Outdoorsy types may love recreating in nature, but that doesn’t make them conservationists.

Published: May 14, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,944 words)

Politics and Prose

A personal essay in which Marie Myung-Ok Lee finds herself conflicted about attending a controversial author’s reading and wonders: what does “speaking up” actually mean?

Source: Longreads
Published: May 17, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,630 words)

In a rare interview, Elena Ferrante describes the writing process behind the Neapolitan novels

“In my mind, there remains the impression of a tidal wave, and when it’s gone, you’re happy that you’re still alive.”

Published: May 17, 2018
Length: 17 minutes (4,302 words)

The Wisdom of Running a 2,189-Mile Marathon

Paul Bisceglio surveys three new books that consider the brain’s role in extreme endurance sports and how a large part of high performance is often all in our heads.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: May 13, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,121 words)

Running!

This excellent ongoing series on the Teen Vogue website features a mix of essays and reporting on non-politicians stepping up and getting involved in government to make a difference.

Source: Teen Vogue
Published: May 1, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,100 words)

Inside the Biomedical Revolution to Save Horseshoe Crabs and the Shorebirds That Need Them

Horseshoe crab blood is used in tests that detect endotoxin, but extracting the blood has stressed the crab population, and the migratory birds that feed on their eggs have suffered catastrophic population decline, too. One Eli Lilly biologist is leading the charge to save the crabs and birds by switching to a synthetic. It helps that he’s a birder.

Source: Audubon
Published: May 13, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,813 words)

My Life As a Public Health Crisis

Society holds many harmful misconceptions about obesity and poverty. So what’s it like to be a fat woman working in food justice?

Source: narrative.ly
Published: May 8, 2018
Length: 9 minutes (2,412 words)

The Many Voyages of Walter Anderson

Anderson was an adventurous Mississippi painter drawn to wild places. But, in the end, it was Horn Island that called to him, a sandy outcropping in the Gulf of Mexico where he lived out his days as a hermit.

Published: May 16, 2018
Length: 36 minutes (9,149 words)

A Long Hot Walk to the Mormon Promised Land

In 1997, a sexually-frustrated teenager and 600 of his peers recreated the three-month Mormon trek through the wilderness: “Our caravans’ ‘provisions’ were just the heavy mounds of North Face bags full of acne creams and hair gels and body sprays.”

Published: May 7, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,700 words)

The Great High School Imposter

Artur Samarin was a 19-year-old Ukrainian college student when he visited the U.S. via a summer exchange program and met an American couple willing to adopt him so he could stay indefinitely. There was a catch: Samarin would need to change his name to Asher Potts and enroll in school as a 14-year-old high school student.

Source: GQ
Published: May 1, 2018
Length: 27 minutes (6,788 words)