Burned Out

How did hot chicken, a dish that 10 years ago, was barely known even just a few miles outside of Nashville, become a craze that has spawned many imitators?

Source: Eater
Published: Sep 21, 2017
Length: 16 minutes (4,064 words)

Gloria Allred’s Crusade

A profile of iconic feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, who has played a key role in changing attitudes and legislation regarding rape and sexual assault, and is currently litigating major cases against Bill Cosby and President Donald Trump.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 25, 2017
Length: 33 minutes (8,375 words)

The Curses: Part I

In the first part of his two-part essay in the redesigned Sewanee Review, John Jeremiah Sullivan examines the hazy, complicated roots of the Blues, going deep into Early Blues before, where he finds forgotten African-American journalist and performer Columbus Bragg, the first person to describe a song as a “blues song,” and another wrinkle in the Blues’ tangled origins.

Published: Jan 1, 2017
Length: 28 minutes (7,008 words)

Keepers of the Secrets

Who are the most interesting women and men in the world? The archivists, guardians of our forgotten stories.

Source: Village Voice
Published: Sep 20, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,158 words)

The College Try

Tuition-free college has become a reality for more than half of California’s high school graduates. The catch is that eligible students still can’t afford rent, food, or books.

Published: Sep 20, 2017
Length: 28 minutes (7,000 words)

The Untold Story of Kim Jong-nam’s Assassination

Doug Bock Clark’s gripping story starts with the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the son and former successor of Kim Jong-il who became an enemy of North Korea (and his younger brother Kim Jong-un), but what makes this tale truly special is how Clark reports and investigates the life of Siti Aisyah, one of the two alleged killers who thought she was merely appearing on a reality TV show and thought this was her chance to finally become the star she believed she could be.

Source: GQ
Published: Sep 25, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,902 words)

My Life in Domestic Goddesses

A personal essay in which Emily Gould pays homage to the wide range of women food writers and cookbook authors who affected her own cooking, and her lifestyle aspirations, over the course of her adult life so far.

Published: Sep 21, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,726 words)

Voices From The Storm

The story of Hurricane Harvey, as told by 28 Texans who helped their state through its darkest hour.

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Oct 1, 2017
Length: 52 minutes (13,241 words)

Beware the Open-Plan Kitchen

Almost a decade after the speculation-driven financial crisis of 2008, the success of HGTV’s aspirational real-estate programming proves that house-flipping culture is alive, well, and potentially dangerous.

Source: Vulture
Published: Sep 20, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,879 words)

Snopes and the Search for Facts in a Post-Fact World

How the legendary internet fact-finding site snopes.com came to be, and how a messy divorce and ownership and control squabbles have threatened the site’s existence.

Source: Wired
Published: Sep 20, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,873 words)