Joan Morgan’s “She Begat This” looks back at how Lauryn Hill crashed through hip-hop’s glass ceiling, while our critic looks at how the author and a cadre of black women writers did the same for hip-hop music journalism.
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Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Sports, Story
The Country Where Fútbol Comes First
Uruguay, a small nation with a deep-seated passion for soccer, is the inspiration for any underdog vying to win a World Cup.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
Writing for the Movies: A Letter from Hollywood, 1962
In this classic essay about a classic American art form, legendary screenwriter Daniel Fuchs reflects on his lifetime learning the trade.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Story, Writing
The Writer Alone
A woman out of her mind, locked in an apartment. This, I believed, was the optimal, and probably only, condition under which art could be made.
Posted inNonfiction, Story, Unapologetic Women
The Wheel, the Woman, and the Human Body
How the newly evolved bicycle helped liberate women and modernize America’s concept of fitness.
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Current Events, Story
Listening for a Way Out
Growing up, Niya Marie sought refuge in Whitney Houston’s ethereal notes; as an adult, Marie found recognition in her silences.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Sports, Story
Smell, Memory
Perfumers evoke the elegance of an imagined tennis game, not the stench of a real one.
Posted inBooks, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
To Tell the Story, These Journalists Became Part of the Story
In two recent books about immigrant families seeking asylum in the U.S., the authors’ attempts to help become part of their subjects’ stories.
Posted inFeature
Why I Lied to Everyone in High School About Knowing Karate
As a teen, Jabeen Akhtar discovered that trying to be an exceptional immigrant can make you do stupid things.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Not Quite Not White
Sharmila Sen grew up understanding distinctions between castes and religions, between the educated and the illiterate. Race was a distinction she didn’t understand until she came to America.
