“The average U.S. public school has about 550 students. Imagine eight or nine schools in an area roughly the size of Philadelphia where every kid is missing at least one limb. Imagine also that their amputations happened alongside a torrent of other tragedies: the loss of family members, friends, neighbors, schools, houses.” In the latest issue of […]
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“We Can’t Rush This Kind of Power”: An Educator on Teaching Poetry to High Schoolers During the Pandemic
“Poetry has a way of forcing one into recognition, or transformation, or both if we’re lucky.”
The Perils of Television and Five Brilliant Reads
“This is what interests me about SNL. For almost its entire existence, its workers have been very clear about its costs. From interns to stars, they’ve described the show as an intensely discriminatory workplace run by a cold, manipulative boss. As they’ve told us this, SNL has grown into one of the most important institutions in American culture. ” […]
Inside the World of Nigerian “Yahoo Boys”
Could Carlos Barragán find the person who conned his mother?
‘Our Souls Are Dead’: How I Survived a Chinese ‘Re-Education’ Camp for Uighurs
“They had sentenced me to seven years of re-education. They had tortured my body and brought my mind to the edge of madness. And now, after reviewing my case, a judge had decided that no, in actual fact, I was innocent.”
Enduring Battles, a Musical Childhood, and Our Top 5
“I felt like a rat trapped in a maze with no finish, running into walls and getting electrocuted at every turn. I wanted out of the hellscape I’d created, but I had formed a whole identity around the latticework of visible bones and tendons; my days were structured around the denial of food. To give […]
Out on the Trail, Deep Online, and the Week’s Top 5
“Eating, even eating junk food—sometimes especially eating junk food—is not just a good idea but potentially the difference between life and death, or at the very least the difference between an enjoyable experience and a grueling one. No one has ever opened up a packet of Oreos on a mountaintop and said, ‘I’m being so bad.’” […]
A Tasty Award and Our Top 5
“What I’m saying is, in that already suffused space, I don’t feel the need to perfume the air around me with the sweet scent of the ceremonial Sabbath bread. But here, in Ames, Iowa, there is a hollow, an empty space. A void I need to fill.” Happy weekend! First, we have some exciting news: […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from Christopher Johnston and Erin Quinlan, Dan McQuade, Crystal Wilkinson, Simon Akam, and Nicholson Baker.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Highlighting notable reads from Jasper Craven, Lisa Kaltenegger, Adam Iscoe, Lisa Abend, and Paul Schrodt.


