Wish I Were There: The Life and Times of a Travel Writer

Editor and author Tom Swick looks at how travel writing has changed over the course of his career.

Author: Tom Swick
Published: Apr 16, 2017
Length: 15 minutes (3,906 words)

The Doctor Will See Your Iguana Now

Andy Newman covers a day in the life of Dr. Anthony Pilny, veterinarian at the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine in Manhattan, New York. Dr. Pilny’s days routinely involve bowel-obstructed bunnies, lame ducks, and feisty, festering iguanas, just to name a few of his pint-sized patients.

Published: May 12, 2017
Length: 9 minutes (2,465 words)

Albania’s Bunker Problem

Between 150,000 and 750,000 bunkers were built throughout this tiny eastern European nation by an extreme Communist regime. Now people use the retired structures as restaurants, museums, underground farms and toilets. Doesn’t sound like a problem to me.

Published: May 8, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,890 words)

How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality

Matthew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Evicted, tells a dramatic tale of economics and survival through the mortgage-interest deduction, the benefit which encourages homeownership through tax deduction. Few people would consider this an entitlement—or the middle and upper class families that benefit from it as being “on the dole”—but that is precisely what it is. And those who benefit the least are the lower class who can’t afford homes and the middle class with modest mortgages.

Published: May 9, 2017
Length: 28 minutes (7,000 words)

Decades After Foster Care, I Found My Long-Lost Brother

A personal essay by Chris J. Rice about finding the brother who was only a year old when she ran away from their abusive mother at 14. Like her brother, Rice wound up in foster care. Through higher education, she found her way to a better life, but didn’t emerge unscathed. Riddled with survivor guilt, she apologizes to her brother, who assures her she wouldn’t have been able to prevail over their mother and save him, even if she had stayed.

Source: Catapult
Published: May 9, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,584 words)

Donald Trump After Hours

Time reporters Michael Scherer and Zeke J. Miller spend dinner with the president and not only observe how the White House has changed under Donald Trump, but also how Donald Trump has changed since taking over the White House. (Spoilers: the White House has already had an extreme makeover where maudlin oils have replaced modern art, yet Donald Trump remains essentially the same. He gets two scoops of ice cream and you get one, natch.)

Source: Time
Published: May 11, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,462 words)

The McSorley Poet

Rafe Bartholomew tells the story of his father — Geoffrey Bartholomew — who felt that his addiction to alcohol and his bartending job at famed McSorley’s in New York City had prevented him from achieving the dream of becoming a writer. Bartholomew quit the booze, but not the bar and wrote a self-published manuscript of poetry: The McSorley Poems: Voices from New York City’s Oldest Pub. In this poignant story of ambition, regrets, fathers, and sons, Rafe recounts how Bartholomew found his voice by mining the humanity of the “Unsorted Regulars, Misfits, Liars, Heroes & Psychos” who frequented the bar.

Source: Hazlitt
Published: May 8, 2017
Length: 22 minutes (5,555 words)

Dwayne Johnson for President!

A profile that will leave you smiling. Caity Weaver spends time with the most lovable man in Hollywood — his secret gyms, his desire to keep you properly hydrated, his rare ability to remember everything about you — and his possible next quest: a run for president.

Source: GQ
Published: May 10, 2017
Length: 21 minutes (5,419 words)

How the Internet Gave Mail-Order Brides the Power

With divorce illegal and online dating popular, it’s hard for women in the Philippines to protect their interests when they get involved with Western men, but a new generation with new technology is reshaping the online mating ritual to finally help tip the scales in women’s’ favor.

Source: Backchannel
Published: Mar 21, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,022 words)

Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire Comey

Thorough reporting by the Washington Post on the decisions inside the White House that led to the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and the chaos that ensued afterward.

Author: Staff
Source: Washington Post
Published: May 10, 2017
Length: 9 minutes (2,300 words)