We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in arts and culture writing.
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Posted inBlog Post, Current Events, Nonfiction
The Collected Crimes of Sheriff Joe Arpaio
The president chose to pardon an extremely bad man before providing aid to Texas.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Dear Chief Justice John Roberts: Our Country Has Not Changed
The president’s failure to condemn Charlottesville is directly linked to voter suppression in the United States.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Impossibility of Building a Personal Brand
Creating a personal brand is exhausting, but potentially rewarding. It requires maintenance on all fronts, social media and IRL. Is it tenable for the average human being?
Posted inBooks, Current Events, Story
Little Führers Everywhere
Vegas Tenhold spent six years covering the disorganized chaos of hate groups, and watched as they began to gather around a few media savvy voices.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Current Events, Nonfiction, Story
The True Story of Refugees in an American High School
The politics of immigration ignores the reality: a classroom of young people adjusting to life in the United States, and a teacher driven to help.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
ABC Family’s Conservative Christian Roots
Writing for The New Republic, Jacqui Shine recently looked at the long, strange history of the Disney-owned television network ABC Family, which will be renamed “Freeform” in January 2016. The network may feature progressive content like The Fosters, which has garnered GLAAD awards and acclaim for its portrayal of an interracial, same-sex couple, but its also had difficulty shaking its conservative […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Locks and Lore: Siri Hustvedt on the Cultural and Literary Significance of Hair
I began the fifth grade with long hair, but at some point in the middle of the year I chopped it into what was then called a pixie cut. When I returned to school newly shorn, I was informed that the boy I liked, a boy who had supposedly liked me back, had withdrawn his […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Do Music Biographies Really Enhance Our Musical Experience?
If [Rhiannon] Giddens were to tell us in a memoir that she’d been thinking about her own child when she sang, it would make the line a poignant narrative moment. But really, what would that reveal that we don’t know from her performance? It might risk drowning out other information we already have: Michael Brown’s […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction
From One Friendship, Lessons on Life, Death, AIDS, and Childlessness
S. Kirk Walsh reflects on her friendship with a gay man battling AIDS — how he taught her to grieve her own infertility, and live life more fully.
