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Helen Oyeyemi on ‘Gingerbread,’ Fairy Tales, and What Self-Branding Is Doing to Childhood
“I was thinking a lot about childhood as this special status, an almost endangered status … that is eroded the more that we start thinking of ourselves as these units of value and worrying about what we’re worth.”
Alternative Reality: An Alt-Weekly Reading List
Nine excellent stories discovered in U.S. alt-weekly newspapers.
When Zora and Langston Took a Road Trip
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston gave Langston Hughes a lift to Tuskegee in her Nash coupe, nicknamed “Sassy Susie.” It was one of most fortuitous hangouts in literary history.
Series Exhumes Out-of-Print Books by Black Authors
“The Blackist,” a column for Catapult’s magazine, introduces audiences to out-of-print novels written by black authors.
The Man Who’s Going to Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store
American food supplies are increasingly channeled through a handful of big companies: Amazon, Walmart, FreshDirect, Blue Apron. What do we lose when local supermarkets go under? A lot — and Kevin Kelley wants to stop that.
A Kendrick Lamar Syllabus
The Pulitzer Prize-winner’s work always feels honest, as writers have found when they dive deep into his literary influences.
The End of Poker Night
Mindy Greenstein looks back on the gambling that was a big part of life with her Holocaust refugee parents.
An Oral History of Detroit Punk Rock
In Detroit’s empty buildings and troubled streets, restless kids squatted, ran punk clubs, pressed their own records, and made their own magazine. They mostly stayed out of trouble.
Karina Longworth on the Women Caught in Howard Hughes’ Hollywood Web of Gossip
Howard Hughes used gossip, spies and money to control Hollywood’s women for nearly 60 years. Karina Longworth critically examines the Golden Age’s gossip to stop his false narratives from becoming our history.
