What happens when ordinary people play God to strangers? Leora Smith explores the history of one of the oldest art installations at Burning Man and the conversations that unfold there.
mental health
Posted inNonfiction
Grandiose and Claustrophobic: ‘Prozac Nation’ Turns 25
Elizabeth Wurtzel’s bestseller is deeply rooted in a specific, Gen-X cultural moment. Can it still speak to us in 2019?
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
‘The Survivor’s Edit’: Bassey Ikpi on Memory, Truth, and Living with Bipolar II
Bassey Ikpi discusses writing about mental illness. “I could count on the morning. It became the thing that existed without my input… without determining whether or not I was worthy of it.”
Posted inFeatured, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
Greenland’s Deepening Ecological Grief
“We no longer understand it here. We don’t trust it.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
Why “Florida Man” Really Isn’t All that Funny
“Is Florida Man a hero, a villain or a victim? And is it still okay to laugh along?” (No, it’s not.)
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘What if people found out?’ On the White Male Suicide Epidemic
“I got home and went back to the fetal position for a week.”
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
No Surgery Can Fix a Self-Defeating World View
Brick had gotten a new jaw, nose, and cheekbones from a surgeon in California, costing him around $30,000, and still he was furious at women and the world.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
The Unreliable Reader
In Esmé Weijun Wang’s book of personal essays, “The Collected Schizophrenias,” it’s the reader, not the writer, who is an unreliable narrator.
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Maintaining Mental Health as a Rescuer in the Grand Tetons
“What was important was that each of us had been there; we all, in another way, had blood on our hands—we had all shared the same experiences. We needed each other.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Highlight, Quotes
How Do You Get Help When No One Believes You?
“Asylum” technically means “a place of safety or refuge,” but that’s not now many psychiatric in-patients experience their time on psych wards.