Prisoners in Hawaii Are Being Sent to Die in Private Prisons in Arizona

Forty-three percent of Hawaii’s state prisoners are currently locked up in the notorious Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona. This is the story of one man, Johnathan, who died in custody just days before his 22nd birthday.

Source: Vice Magazine
Published: Mar 6, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,858 words)

Brontosaurs Whistling in the Dark

Reflections on Angela Merkel’s and Germany’s attitude toward refugees, from a daughter of refugees who themselves fled Germany in the 1930.

Published: Jan 1, 2017
Length: 35 minutes (8,759 words)

Searching for Mr. Grass

Why are thousands of people watching this man’s grass grow?

Published: Mar 1, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,000 words)

Leaving Aleppo

Pauls Toutonghi lovingly recalls his grandfather, Philippe Elias Tütünji, a writer, poet, and translator from Aleppo, Syria. Tütünji immigrated to America during World War II and never gave up his dream to achieve success as a poet in his adopted homeland. Working menial and low-paying jobs to support his family, and “full of immigrant ambition,” he once visited actor Danny Thomas (who was born Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz in 1912, in Lebanon) in a bid to entice Thomas to record the poem as a song — a feat Tütünji felt would make him a star.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Feb 28, 2017
Length: 9 minutes (2,297 words)

Protectors

Do you own your pet, or does your pet own you? This deceptively simple piece of short fiction explores fertility and fragility, and the ways we fail to protect those we love.

Published: Oct 1, 2016
Length: 14 minutes (3,709 words)

I’m Renting a Dog?

Can purebreds on leases democratize credit? The Nevadan behind Wags Lending thinks so.

Source: Bloomberg
Published: Mar 1, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,471 words)

The Empathy Layer

Koko offers peer-to-peer support to promote emotional well-being. Can the app—which lets strangers and bots become amateur therapists—create a safer internet?

Author: Ben Popper
Source: The Verge
Published: Mar 2, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,357 words)

Quest For Solace

Musher and Ironman athlete Katherine Keith has known pain and suffering: her daughter died as an infant and first her husband was killed in a plane crash ferrying a neighbor to emergency medical attention in Alaska. Not one to allow grief and adversity to defeat her, Keith won the Yukon Quest’s Rookie of the Year award, placing seventh in the 1,000-mile dog sled race.

Source: ESPN
Published: Mar 2, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,660 words)

Will Write for Food

In our post-Bourdain era of Yelp, Instagramability and celebrity chefs, it seems like everyone wants to be a food writer, but how did food writing become the new rock criticism? And is the genre suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen?

Source: The Ringer
Published: Mar 2, 2017
Length: 15 minutes (3,935 words)

Marathon Man

Who wants to run 26.2 miles in Maine in the middle of December? And who really believes that doing so will make a difference for a mill town on the ropes? This guy.

Source: Down East
Published: Dec 14, 2016
Length: 16 minutes (4,079 words)