Caught up in a cycle of drug use and abuse when she was sentenced to life in prison, Valerie Bozeman was no kingpin; she was just a woman struggling with addiction, dealing to further her own habit. President Obama commuted Valerie’s sentence in May, and she was free to go after serving twenty-three years. Since […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels
Barrett Brown reviews books from inside a federal prison.
Posted inFeature
The Life and Murder of Stella Walsh, Intersex Olympic Champion
Eighty years ago, in Berlin, Stella Walsh won her second Olympic medal. Decades later, Walsh’s murder and subsequent autopsy threw the legacy of track’s first female superstar into turmoil.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Price We Pay for Mass Incarceration
Put another way, the supposition on which our mass incarceration is premised—namely, that it materially reduces crime—is, at best, a hunch. Yet the price we pay for acting on this hunch is enormous. This is true in the literal sense: it costs more than $80 billion a year to run our jails and prisons. It […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Case for More Female Cops
Nearly nine out of ten cops are men. Sarah Smarsh discusses the police force’s gender problem and a Wichita woman’s efforts inside the criminal justice system that failed her.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Story
The High-Water Mark: The Battle of Gettysburg, the Jersey Shore, and the Death of My Father
Contemplating history, family, and today’s America, Dane A. Wisher tells the story of spreading his father’s ashes on the battlefield at Gettysburg National Park and coming to terms with his life and death.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Writing Our America
“Despite the headlines that came after the election calling this country ‘Trump’s America’—and there were many—I won’t call it that, or see it that way. And regardless of your politics I’ll ask you to join me. This is our America. It’s our America to write in, and our America to write.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
High Desert Suicide
Was a guard at one of the country’s most dangerous prisons hazed to death by his fellow correctional officers?
Posted inNonfiction
Xenu’s Paradox: The Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard and the Making of Scientology
Alec Nevala-Lee, author of Astounding, a forthcoming book on the history of science fiction, digs into the writing career of L. Ron Hubbard, gaining new insights into the life of the controversial founder of dianetics and the origins and nature of Scientology itself.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
Writing Our America
“Despite the headlines that came after the election calling this country ‘Trump’s America’—and there were many—I won’t call it that, or see it that way. And regardless of your politics I’ll ask you to join me. This is our America. It’s our America to write in, and our America to write.”
