The Future of Media Is Here, and I Was There

Content marketers convene in Boston to rid the world of bad content, get under your skin, and scavenge the rotting bones of journalism.

Source: Tablet Magazine
Published: May 17, 2017
Length: 21 minutes (5,435 words)

True Love Will Find You: My Afternoon in Daniel Johnston’s Dining Room

During his punk band’s first tour, a high school musician visits the home of underground artist Daniel Johnson, one of his musical heroes, and someone who also suffers from manic depression. The experience is the realization of a dream, and it gave the author perspective that stayed with him for years.

Source: Catapult
Published: Jul 19, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,577 words)

Naked Truths

Jamie Lauren Keiles spends a week at a naturist camp to learn “why people get naked.” As she exercises, sun tans, and square dances her way through a week garbed for the most part only in shoes, she gets stripped not only of inhibitions around her own body, but also of notions around naturist intent, learning that most enthusiasts take off their clothes not for sexual reasons, but simply to feel free.

Source: Racked
Published: Jul 25, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,419 words)

Helping My Son Choose Between the Cub Scouts and His Beliefs About God

A personal essay in which Kate Abbott writes about helping her 8-year-old atheist son navigate the Cub Scouts’ “Duty to God” requirement.

Source: Longreads
Published:
Length: 10 minutes (2,730 words)

Patagonia’s Big Business of #Resist

A controlled rate of growth, responsible production methods and financial support of environmental causes ─ the Patagonia company has always run according to a strong philosophy, not just low-impact, but activist. It turns out that has been very good for business. Now it’s using its money and clout to fight the Trump administration, and urging other outdoor industry players to follow suit.

Author: Abe Streep
Source: Outside
Published: Jul 24, 2017
Length: 21 minutes (5,491 words)

The Poisoning

Alexander Chee reflects on his affinity for gin and how over the years — in its various cocktail permutations alongside vermouth in martinis and negronis — it has more than kept him company, becoming “almost a travel companion.”

Source: Tin House
Published: Jul 25, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,548 words)

What I Know About My Best Friend’s Murder

An excerpt of The Hot One: a Memoir of Friendship, Sex and Murder, by Carolyn Murnick. Murnick tries to make sense of the stabbing death of her childhood best friend at 22, in 2001, just eight months after they last saw each other.

Published: Jul 25, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,435 words)

Hunting for Antibiotics in the World’s Dirtiest Places

With drug resistance on the rise, the world faces a potential health catastrophe from infections we can no longer fight. One English scientist is probing toilet seats and pools of nasty stuff to find cures the way earlier scientists did: in nature.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jul 1, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,217 words)

Magic Can Be Normal

In an effort to help her eight-year-old daughter see herself — an Asian American girl — in popular culture, Nicole Chung takes her to see Desdemona Chiang’s race-conscious production of The Winter’s Tale at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Source: Hazlitt
Published: Jul 18, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,560 words)

Twelve Truths About My Life With Bell’s Palsy

A personal essay in which Pam Moore write about half her face becoming paralyzed after she gave birth to her second child, making her post-partum life much more challenging than anticipated.

Author: Pam Moore
Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 25, 2017
Length: 16 minutes (4,065 words)