American Petro-Topia

The daughter of a plastics manufacturer assesses the toxins that get passed from one generation to another, in her family and yours. First published in 2015, this story, like petrochemistry, stays with you.

Source: Aeon
Published: Mar 1, 2015
Length: 17 minutes (4,400 words)

The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe

Launched in 1977, the Voyager spacecraft are still out there, monitored by nine flight-team engineers who are fluent in an archaic programming code known only to them. They are forgoing retirement to squeeze every last watt out of the 40-year-old spacecraft, which will run out of energy by 2030 at the latest.

Published: Aug 3, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,700 words)

Now, This Is a Supermodel

A profile of the plus-size model Ashley Graham, who has appeared on the covers of Vogue and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and has become an ambassador of a beauty movement that celebrates the bodies of real people.

Author: Jada Yuan
Published: Aug 6, 2017
Length: 16 minutes (4,073 words)

The Hippies Who Hated the Summer of Love

Fifty years ago, the merchants of Haight-Ashbury advertised a summer of free food, free lodging, and free love. What they got instead was a civic nightmare.

Author: Kate Daloz
Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 7, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,700 words)

Whose Fault Was Dunkirk?

For years, historians have blamed King Leopold of Belgium. But did they fall for Allied propaganda?

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 7, 2017
Length: 15 minutes (3,983 words)

Millions Of Women Face Astonishing Pain When They Have Sex. Why Don’t Their Doctors Take Them Seriously?

When Maxwell Williams learned a female friend of his was incapable of having sex without feeling excruciating pain but struggled to find a doctor who would take her pain seriously, he decided to investigate what was really causing the stabbing sensation that doctors kept telling his friend was all in her head.

Source: GOOD Magazine
Published: Jul 31, 2017
Length: 25 minutes (6,400 words)

Becoming Danish

“To be Danish is to not be afraid of saying exactly what is happening at any moment, with elegance and wit.”

Source: Saveur
Published: Jul 27, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,300 words)

Questions for Me About Dying

Celebrated Australian novelist Cory Taylor was diagnosed with cancer in 2005. Rejecting the taboos that prevent humans from talking openly about death, she goes on the record with her answers to some of the most typical questions people have asked her about dying.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 31, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,712 words)

The War on Drugs Is a War on Women of Color

Women of color are disproportionately targeted by the war on drugs and broken windows policing.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 3, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,744 words)

And How Much of These Hills Is Gold

In this short story, the children of Chinese miners in the frontier West struggle to survive after their parents’ death.

Source: Missouri Review
Published: Aug 3, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,793 words)