“Tesfaye wan’t sure where the gunfire was coming from, and with service outages across Mekelle, he couldn’t look online for answers. He was certain something was very wrong. But what could he do? He got dressed and did what he did most mornings. He went to work.” Every month, we share an excerpt from our […]
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Remember the Titans: An ‘Attack on Titan’ Reading List
The influential anime didn’t just upend kaiju tropes—it delivered an unsettling look at imperialism and hubris.
10 Short Stories, The Power of Music, and Our Top 5
“I always admired how my father could play so delicately with such brutal hands. They were rough, mired with patches of psoriasis, calloused from playing the charango and the guitar, and scarred, scarred all over.” I have fond memories of playing the violin when I was a child, and over the years I’ve considered returning […]
I Became a Pastor During the Pandemic
“But faith is like sandpaper on the soul: pain brought growth.”
A Bleed of Blue
At Granta, Amy Key recounts intentionally avoiding romantic love, thinking it the best way to avoid getting hurt. She concludes that depriving herself of intimate relationships has caused its own form of harm. Absence of romantic love in my life has created its own awkward space in me. Like a corner of a room you […]
Finding Strength in What’s Routine (and Our Top 5)
“A list, after all, is a confession. We do not write in typeface. We write in loops and hesitations. In ink smudges. In cursive, if we remember how. Each list is a thumbprint. Each paper a window.” There is no sugar coating the world today. Things are rough. I’m no self-help expert, but in times […]
Welcome to Alphaland, the Disney World for Bodybuilders
Of the many species of internet entrepreneurship that preys on vanity and shame, “fitness influencer” might be one of the most fraught. Yet, that’s exactly who Christian Guzman is courting with his massive gym in the Houston exurbs. Emily McCullar investigates the Oiliest Place on Earth. The line to buy day passes was steady, and […]
Bright Passage
Leslie Jamison considers what it means to be in hospital, exploring the liminal spaces between sick and well.
A Year in Reading: Restraint as Wisdom
We live in a culture built on ignoring limits—of land, of bodies, of attention—and these stories kept returning me to that truth.
This Week: Rituals, Emoji, and a Cold Case
“Ritual is an urge and an act; it’s an aesthetic gesture. As an adult I established the habit of turning my attention to those subtle seasonal details and recording them. I was loving and honoring the land, but this practice still left something undone. A certain clarity, maybe formality. Something like a frame around a […]

