There Was Once a Girl

A deeply personal essay about anorexia and the false narratives that surround the disease.

Source: Slate
Published: Dec 7, 2015
Length: 32 minutes (8,077 words)

The Return of the Politically Engaged Rapper

Stephen profiles Killer Mike, an outspoken Atlanta-based rapper whose activism might just herald the return of politically engaged rap.

Published: Dec 3, 2015
Length: 10 minutes (2,713 words)

The Art of Escape

What do we gain from giving inmates access to video games?

Source: Kill Screen
Published: Dec 7, 2015
Length: 12 minutes (3,122 words)

A Survivor’s Life

Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, 16, was the youngest person shot in a classroom at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Though the community is moving on, the trauma has continued to affect Cheyeanne and her family.

Author: Eli Saslow
Source: Washington Post
Published: Dec 5, 2015
Length: 23 minutes (5,980 words)

American Gun Culture is Literally Killing Us: A Reading List

It is impossible to talk about guns without talk about race, class, and gender. This list is only the beginning.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 6, 2015

The Devil Gives You the First Time for Free

Mike Sager’s 2005 Esquire interview with Scott Weiland.

Author: Mike Sager
Source: Esquire
Published: Apr 1, 2005
Length: 22 minutes (5,694 words)

Bacteria on the Brain

A brilliant surgeon offered dying patients an experimental, untested treatment. Was his controversial approach life-saving innovation or an unethical overreach?

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Dec 3, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,520 words)

Access Denied

Celebrities, politicians, musicians, and corporations used to rely on large media organizations to get their message to the public. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter has allowed them to bypass this, changing the media landscape.

Source: The Awl
Published: Dec 3, 2015
Length: 22 minutes (5,644 words)

The Photo That Changed the Face of AIDS

In November 1990, LIFE magazine published a photograph of a young man named David Kirby surrounded by anguished family members as he lay dying of AIDS. The haunting image of Kirby on his death bed, taken by a journalism student named Therese Frare, quickly became the one photograph most powerfully identified with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Source: Time
Published: Nov 25, 2015
Length: 7 minutes (1,780 words)

White Debt

“What is the condition of white life? We are moral debtors who act as material creditors.”

Author: Eula Biss
Published: Dec 2, 2015
Length: 15 minutes (3,841 words)