The Obsessive Life and Mysterious Death of the Fisherman Who Discovered The Loch Ness Monster

“A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water — and daringly set out to catch it — only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest.”

Author: Paul Brown
Source: Narratively
Published: Dec 10, 2020
Length: 22 minutes (5,504 words)

What If You Could Do It All Over?

Joshua Rothman explores the allure of our unlived lives.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Dec 14, 2020
Length: 17 minutes (4,253 words)

‘I Didn’t Make It’

“Flaviana Decker, a waitress at Walt Disney World and single mother to two daughters, struggles to hold on to her middle-class life amid a pandemic and catastrophic layoff.”

Author: Greg Jaffe
Published: Dec 11, 2020
Length: 16 minutes (4,206 words)

Does Thomas Chan Belong in Prison?

“There is no moral certitude in this story, no clear bad guys or good guys. There are only the devastated real people it happened to, the Sullivans and the Chans, and swirling around them a bunch of lawyers, the judges, the activists, politicians, and journalists like me.”

Source: Maclean’s
Published: Nov 24, 2020
Length: 24 minutes (6,231 words)

Lessons From a Bear Attack

“Mya and Alex lived through a brush with the wild world that was much closer than anything most of us will ever experience.”

Source: Cottage Life
Published: Dec 3, 2020
Length: 12 minutes (3,119 words)

Hand in Glove

“And, formed as they are from durable polymers and loaded with toxic plasticizers and other chemicals, plastic gloves can last for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Yet in discarding them (or any plastic object, come to that), we act as if none of this touches us.”

Source: Orion Magazine
Published: Sep 10, 2020
Length: 19 minutes (4,967 words)

She saved her 7-year-old brother’s life. Then the pandemic threatened to take it.

Reign Howard didn’t understand what a bone marrow transplant was, just that her brother desperately needed one. It was March 2020. Nothing went according to plan.

Published: Dec 7, 2020
Length: 20 minutes (5,200 words)

You Can’t Go Home Again

“For an immigrant family, storytelling saves those you love from oblivion.”

Author: Zito Madu
Source: Plough
Published: Nov 24, 2020
Length: 9 minutes (2,374 words)

What’s the Matter With Cultural Politics?

“It’s not just the economy, stupid.”

Source: Mother Jones
Published: Dec 9, 2020
Length: 17 minutes (4,388 words)

Visible Men: Black Fathers Talk About Losing Sons to Police Brutality

“We asked the fathers and father figures of Michael Brown, Terence Crutcher, Daniel Prude, Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, and Jacob Blake to reflect on the violence that forever altered their families’ lives—and what it means to raise a Black man in America.”

Source: GQ
Published: Dec 10, 2020
Length: 28 minutes (7,072 words)