The Atlantic
Stacey Abrams Writes A Thriller
How she became a novelist, what politics and writing have in common, and why, at the end of every good story, someone’s got to die
10 min |
June 2021
The Atlantic
Alison Bechdel's Spiritual Sprint
In her new memoir, the cartoonist runs, climbs, bikes, skis, spins, and Solo exes her way toward transcendence.
6 min |
June 2021
Poets & Writers Magazine
Ehrlich Speaks to Mother-Writers
Lara Ehrlich, author of the short story collection Animal Wife (Red Hen Press, 2020), has a deep narrative investment in the ways the world denies women power and agency. In October 2020 that commitment took a new shape with the first episode of her podcast, Writer Mother Monster, a much-needed balm for those of us balancing mothering and writing in the midst of a global pandemic. Aimed at dismantling the myth that women can “have it all,” her podcast is a series of interviews with mother-writers working in all genres, at varied points in their careers, who candidly discuss the joys and complications of that dual identity. Ehrlich, herself a mother-writer—her daughter turns five this year—spoke about what she has gleaned from these exchanges and how they’ve influenced her own approach.
2 min |
May - June 2021
New York magazine
Mads Mikkelsen – ‘Oh, That's Right. I'm This Guy.'
Mads Mikkelsen is known for playing villains in America and more nuanced roles in Denmark. He takes everything and nothing seriously.
10+ min |
April 26 - May 9, 2021
The Atlantic
The Awful Wisdom of the Hostage
What a new memoir reveals about endurance—and extreme remorse
10 min |
May 2021
Bloomberg Businessweek
Asian Americans Are Ready for a Hero
After going from “model minority” to invisible minority to hunted minority, the community needs a new generation of cultural and political leaders
9 min |
April 12, 2021
The Atlantic
Beirut – After The Blast
Last summer’s explosion in Beirut killed hundreds of people and damaged much of the city. My efforts to repair my apartment reveal a lot about how Lebanon works—and doesn’t.
10+ min |
April 2021
New York magazine
The Culture Pages – The Queen of Fractured Fairy Tales
Hlen Oyeyemi writes magical, unsettling novels in which nothing remains fixed. She has lived her life that way, too.
10 min |
March 29 - April 11, 2021
Reader's Digest US
I Am Mangoes … A Sweet Treat at Its Peak
One summer day in the early 2000s, Pennsylvania dentist Bhaskar Savani sat outside the arrivals gate at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport waiting for his father to emerge.
4 min |
April 2021
New York magazine
Anything for You
In Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, artificial intelligence meets real sacrifice.
5 min |
March 15 - 28, 2021
Russian Life
Sidewalk Art
The lamentable state of Russia’s roads and sidewalks has long been fertile ground for memes and jokes. Irkutsk artist Ivan Kravchenko decided to turn the problem into an art project. For over two years he has been patching ruts in city sidewalks with colorful ceramic tiles.
6 min |
March/April 2021
Russian Life
Sputnik V: First Place or Long Shot?
The Russian vaccine seems top-notch, but low public trust and a botched rollout remain formidable barriers to returning to normalcy.
5 min |
March/April 2021
Russian Life
the Valley of the Dead
On the Trail of a Russian Movie Star
10+ min |
March/April 2021
Russian Life
Food & Drink
Food & Drink
4 min |
March/April 2021
Russian Life
POLAR YOUTH
Misha Smirnov has the day off. There are the traditional eggs for breakfast and the usual darkness out the window.
9 min |
March/April 2021
Russian Life
Russian Chronicles
Russian Chronicles
10+ min |
March/April 2021
Russian Life
A People on the Brink
Over the past century, the ancient people known as the Votes has been exiled twice, has seen its language banned, and has faced the threat of having its villages razed. Today, although teetering on the verge of extinction, it holds fast to one of the last rights it enjoys – the right to bear and to say its own name.
10+ min |
March/April 2021
New York magazine
A Work in Infinite Progress
For the Wooster Group, theater is a religion and the process is the point. Its latest: a years-in-the-making adaptation of Brecht’s The Mother.
2 min |
March 1-14, 2021
Reason magazine
Enchanted New York
A tale of religion in Manhattan in the 19th and 20th centuries
6 min |
April 2021
New York magazine
Design Hunting: Rock-Star Journalist Lisa Robinson Has Lived in Her Apartment for 45 Years
She’s kept an archive of the cassette tapes containing hundreds of interviews she’s done in her Upper East Side rental.
5 min |
February 15–28, 2021
Poets & Writers Magazine
Pandemic Pen Pals
Nupur Chaudhury, a public health strategist living in New York City, grew up in the nineties sending letters through the mail. She received weekly aerograms from relatives in India; she corresponded with a pen pal in Texas; her father even took her to admire the post office’s new stamps every month. But as she grew older, Chaudhury says, “E-mail became more popular, and I really put that writing part of me to the side”—that is, until she came across the pen pal exchange Penpalooza on Twitter in August 2020.
3 min |
March - April 2021
Poets & Writers Magazine
Craft Therapy
In her third book, the essay collection girlhood, published by Bloomsbury in March, Melissa Febos transforms scars into meditations on culture and psychology.
10+ min |
March - April 2021
Poets & Writers Magazine
A Room of (Almost) My Own
Finding space, and permission, to write
10+ min |
March - April 2021
The Atlantic
Tom Stoppard's Double Life
For Britain’s leading postwar playwright, virtuosity and uncertainty go hand in hand.
10+ min |
March 2021
The Atlantic
A Forgotten Founder
Prince Hall was a free african american in Boston at a time of revolutionary fervor— and a transformative figure whose story deserves to be reinserted into the tale of America's creation.
10+ min |
March 2021
The Atlantic
We Mourn For All We Do Not Know
The Federal Writers’ Project slave narratives provide a window into our heritage—to stories of suffering but also of love, joy, wonder, and survival. They’re an all-too-rare link to ordinary black lives gone by.
10+ min |
March 2021
The Atlantic
Caroline Shaw is Making Classical Cool
Her innovative work won her a Pulitzer Prize at age 30. She’s collaborated with Kanye and Nas. What does her success mean for the long-suffering genre?
9 min |
March 2021
Russian Life
Tenders of the Vine
Visiting Russia’s Nascent Wine Region
10+ min |
January/February 2021
Russian Life
Restoring the Future
A Small Town Gets a Makeover
10+ min |
January/February 2021
Russian Life
Ascending Anik
Here I stand, on the summit of Anik Mountain, drenched to the bone amid zero visibility, driving rain, and a fierce wind.
10+ min |