In northern Albania, vengeance is justice, but does it get people something besides more pain?
Virginia Quarterly Review
Posted inCrime, Nonfiction, Quotes
In Service of the Slender Man: When Teen Girls Become Murderous
Alex Mar on how and why teen-girl duos become murderous.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
Plasma For Sale (Used) — $20 a Pop
Sarah Smarsh’s brother has sold his plasma for the last decade to make ends meet under mounting credit card debt and student loans.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Blood Brother
Sarah Smarsh writes about how rich drug companies buy plasma from the poor and working poor — literally feeding their wealth with one of the few renewable resources the poor have to sell — their blood.
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Quotes
‘This Place, This Moment, Unplanned’: On Surviving a Heart Attack
Jeff Sharlet on how recovering from a life-threatening event takes place moment by moment.
Posted inHistory, Quotes
The Re-Kazakhification of Kazakhstan, On Horseback
After years of Soviet control, the country looks to the cultural foundations of its nomadic past.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Birth of a City, In Fits and Starts
Communities in Haiti are building their own post-earthquake infrastructure without the help of the government.
Posted inEditor's Pick
They Call It Canaan
In the aftermath of disaster, as new communities thousands-strong coalesce in the countryside around Port-au-Prince, Haitians ask: what makes a city?
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Can an Old Satire, Reborn, Survive the New Political Climate?
Meghan Daum is nervous about the reception for her reissued debut novel, a satire of small towns and coastal elites.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Quality of Life Report, 2017
A personal essay by author Meghan Daum in which she describes her trepidation around the re-issue of her 2003 debut novel, The Quality of Life Report. The book–about a New York television reporter who moves to the midwest–pokes fun at liberals, coastal elites and P.C. culture, and makes jokes about gender, race and class, all […]