The Moon Is Beautiful Tonight: On East Asian Narratives

Using Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key, Jianan Qian examines the differences between how stories are structured and celebrated in Western and East Asian cultures.

Source: The Millions
Published: Apr 17, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,578 words)

Improbable Cause

Three healthy people died at 3635 Pitch Pine Crescent in Mississauga, Ontario, in less than four years. In this in-depth multi-media piece at the Toronto Star, Amy Dempsey unravels how a series of missteps and errors at every phase of the investigation nearly allowed one couple to get away with murder — three times.

Source: Toronto Star
Published: Apr 19, 2018
Length: 36 minutes (9,166 words)

The Delay

After two siblings got kidnapped on the Navajo reservation, jurisdictional issues and a structural breakdown of the Amber Alert system slowed the search. Trying to protect Indigenous children on tribal lands requires increased police training and federal funding, but funding often means compromising some tribal sovereignity.

Source: Esquire
Published: Apr 18, 2018
Length: 21 minutes (5,373 words)

The Great Chinese Dinosaur Boom

A gold rush of fossil-finding is turning China into the new epicenter of paleontology.

Source: Smithsonian
Published: Apr 19, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,219 words)

How the NRA Sells Guns in America Today

At The New Republic, “military veteran, big game hunter, and gun owner” Elliott Woods goes undercover at gun trade show to learn about how the NRA marketing machine has gone into high gear to combat what they’re calling the “Trump Slump.”

Published: Apr 16, 2018
Length: 33 minutes (8,255 words)

They Don’t Do Sadness

A feature on a teen production of the musical “Spring Awakening” in rehearsals at Barclay Performing Arts in West Boca Raton — near the city of Parkland — including some kids who attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and were present during the shooting. The show, about teens in 19th century Germany discovering their sexuality, provides these traumatized actors a way to explore and express their complicated emotions.

Source: Topic
Published: Apr 17, 2018
Length: 18 minutes (4,521 words)

The Changeling

A personal essay in which How to Write an Autobiographical Novel author Alexander Chee considers how answering the question, “What are you?” turned him into a writer.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 17, 2018
Length: 15 minutes (3,921 words)

NHS SOS

Between ambulance delays, an aging population and a lack of beds, emergency medical care in England is on the brink of collapse. Compounding the issues is the fact that the country’s National Health Service is trying to reform its entire structure, and so far the transition is not a smooth one.

Author: James Meek
Published: Apr 5, 2018
Length: 85 minutes (21,311 words)

Pregnant, Uninsured, and Adrift

What happens when you live in the U.S., you get pregnant, and you’re uninsured? Bills. Big ones. Lots of them.

Source: Splinter
Published: Apr 17, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,845 words)

For the Child of Immigrants, the American Dream Can Be a Nightmare

“I have not inherited the cognitive dissonance necessary to unconditionally love something that hates you, and I am childless— I have dogs, not kids— so I don’t take consolation in the hope that my children will reap what I sow, that I will plant seeds that will bear fruit my children will eat. This all ends with me.”

Source: Vogue
Published: Apr 17, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,808 words)