Kelela is Ready For You Now

On the eve of her debut album’s launch, experimental R&B vocalist Kelela talks to the Fader about meeting the challenges of working as a black woman artist in the largely white male-dominated recording industry with self-acceptance.

Source: Fader
Published: Oct 3, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,430 words)

The File: Lost Then Found

A personal essay in which A.M. Homes — who ten years ago published The Mistress’s Daughter, a memoir about meeting her birth parents — reports on the experience of recently being given her long lost adoption file, and the effects of the information on her understanding of her origins.

Author: A.M. Homes
Source: Granta
Published: Oct 31, 2017
Length: 20 minutes (5,153 words)

How the Family-Run Underground Museum Became One of LA’s Most Vital Cultural Forces

For W, Diane Solway tells the story of how LA’s Underground Museum, a part-exhibition, part-salon space in the Arlington Heights neighborhood created by painter Noah Davis came to be.

Source: W Magazine
Published: Nov 8, 2017
Length: 9 minutes (2,256 words)

An Urban Planner Against the Developer Presidency

An urban planner examines the worldview of high-stakes commercial real estate developers, with a special focus on our new developer-in-chief.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 8, 2017
Length: 11 minutes (2,885 words)

Meet The Riders Of The Sikh Motorcycle Club Of The Northeast

Mistaken for Muslims and attacked for their turbans, the Sikhs are fundamentally a people of peace. For a group of Sikhs in New Jersey, cruising America’s back roads on Harley-Davidsons is not only a way to enjoy a piece of the American Dream, it’s a way to forge brotherhood and reaffirm their commitment to Sikh values.

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Nov 5, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,383 words)

Outside the Manson Pinkberry

Manson bloggers, the world of murder fandom, and the philosophy of being — can you ever escape who you are, or were?

Source: The Believer
Published: Nov 6, 2017
Length: 20 minutes (5,150 words)

Something Is Wrong on the Internet

“Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatize, and abuse children, automatically and at scale.” James Bridle traces a profoundly disturbing digital trail through “industrialized nightmare production,” flagging a long tail of iterative violence that human oversight is powerless to contain.

Source: Medium
Published: Nov 6, 2017
Length: 20 minutes (5,000 words)

Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies

The story deepens. Harvey Weinstein hired private investigators, including ex-Mossad agents, to track journalists and his accusers in an attempt to quash sexual abuse allegations made against him.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 6, 2017
Length: 21 minutes (5,300 words)

It’s Possible: An Oral History of 1997’s “Cinderella”

For years, Whitney Houston had envisioned a version of the previously white “Cinderella” for young black girls. Here is the story of the historic film’s creation, told by the people who made it happen.

Source: Shondaland
Published: Nov 1, 2017
Length: 54 minutes (13,678 words)

Honky-Tonk Man

“I called him Mr. Chuck. We did what families do: We carefully observed the borders of conversational terrain. The election of Obama, no. The best strategy for grilling buffalo burgers, yes.”

Source: Oxford American
Published: Sep 5, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,279 words)