The Digital Ruins of a Forgotten Future

Leslie Jamison profiles several long-term, hard-core users of Second Life, an online platform in which you create a fantasy alter-ego. Your “selective self” resides in a virtual world that allows you to leave behind everything you don’t like about yourself and your real life.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Dec 1, 2017
Length: 36 minutes (9,171 words)

The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

During Hurricane Harvey, the Army Corp of Engineers decided to flood Houston’s Buffalo Bayou instead of risking a dam collapse, destroying one of the city’s most affluent suburbs. This meant that Harvey’s legacy wouldn’t be death, but something just as enduring — the lawsuit.

Published: Nov 16, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,500 words)

The Third Life of Richard Miles

Richard Miles spent 15 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The state of Texas compensated Miles for his wrongful conviction, but life after vindication has come with its own set of challenges.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 20, 2017
Length: 23 minutes (5,753 words)

The Most Hated Poet in Portland

Why did the internet turn on this self-published poet? In the history of internet pile-ons, this one rates pretty high.

Author: Laura Yan
Source: The Outline
Published: Nov 14, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,336 words)

The Life and Death of a Radical Sisterhood

For New York Magazine’s site The Cut, writer Joy Press compiles an oral history of New York Radical Women, a group of theorists and activists who gathered for the first time in the fall of 1967 and, over the course of their existence, helped define many central tenets of late 20th century feminism.

Author: Joy Press
Published: Nov 15, 2017
Length: 20 minutes (5,163 words)

Parenting Class Dropout

A personal essay in which Paulette Kamenecka recalls how, during her high-risk pregnancy, driven by a longing for normalcy, she tried out a class for parents-to-be.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 17, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,271 words)

The Lost Genocide

They have been stripped of their citizenship, prevented from having children, and systematically murdered. But the United Nations may never be able to prosecute the Rohingya genocide.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 16, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,868 words)

Beached Whales

A meditation on death and one of nature’s marine mysteries, and another Notable essay in this year’s Best American Essays anthology.

Source: apt
Published: Jul 1, 2016
Length: 10 minutes (2,706 words)

The Tech Industry’s Gender-Discrimination Problem

Kolhatkar walks us through several egregious allegations of abuse and discrimination suffered by women at tech companies like Tesla, SoFi, and Google. The problems are pervasive and are surfacing as more women come forward; class-action gender-discrimination suits are pending against companies such as Twitter, Microsoft, and Uber.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 13, 2017
Length: 34 minutes (8,519 words)

The Myth of the Male Bumbler

“Allow me to make a controversial proposition: Men are every bit as sneaky and calculating and venomous as women are widely suspected to be.”

Source: The Week
Published: Nov 15, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,638 words)