But What Will Your Parents Think?

In this personal essay, This Will Be My Undoing author Morgan Jerkins tackles the time-worn question of how far is too far to go in revealing yourself in first-person writing.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 10, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,609 words)

I Found My Dream Apartment — and then Adopted a Difficult Dog

A personal essay in which writer Jason Diamond reflects on the early, difficult days with his anxious dog, Max, and realizes how much they were, and are alike.

Source: Curbed
Published: May 8, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,843 words)

The Promise of Vaping and the Rise of Juul

Nicotine vape devices were originally perceived as ways to help adults quit smoking actual cigarettes. Instead, American teens have embraced nicotine-delivery technology with a ferocity that has parents, pediatricians, and public schools scrambling for solutions.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: May 7, 2018
Length: 26 minutes (6,621 words)

A Remarkable Child

Daniel Rafinejad wonders if he and his best friend have run out of stories to tell one another.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 9, 2018
Length: 18 minutes (4,503 words)

He Was One of Millions of Chinese Seniors Growing Old Alone. So He put Himself up for Adoption.

How an 85-year-old Chinese man — desperate for human interaction — put himself up for adoption by taping a note to a bus shelter in his neighborhood.

Source: Washington Post
Published: May 2, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,526 words)

Lou Reed, Poet: A New Book Sheds Light on the Late Icon’s Literary Side

Before he gave himself to rock and roll, the Velvet Underground frontman was a college poet who studied journalism and cofounded a literary magazine named for an Ornette Coleman song. After the Velvets disbanded, Reed briefly left music for literature once again.

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: May 1, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,914 words)

“It’s Just a Beer”

Too frequently, unfamiliar men’s gifts come with the expectation of physical intimacy and the threat of violence. For many women, this transactional dynamic has ruined the promise of platonic male-female relationships.

Author: Kira Smith
Published: Apr 25, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,600 words)

Michael Chabon: Are Kids the Enemy of Writing?

Four-time father Michael Chabon reconciles ignoring the advice of a great, un-named Southern writer who told him that having children would diminish his writerly productivity.

Source: GQ
Published: Apr 27, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,008 words)

O, Small-bany!

Writer Elisa Albert’s notes from a bygone spring in her adopted hometown.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 7, 2018
Length: 16 minutes (4,229 words)

Keeping the Faith

Hundreds of Catholic women priests are quietly leading their own progressive parishes — despite denouncements from the Vatican.

Source: Vogue
Published: May 4, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,607 words)