In 1991, twelve-year-old Edwin Debrow killed a cab driver. Twenty-five years later, he remains in prison, continuing to be denied parole since 1999. Is the public better served by putting youngsters in adult prisons and keeping them off the streets for years and years?
Automattic
America’s Restaurant Bubble is About to Burst
With rising costs and competition from food startups, the trendy, farm-to-table style of sit-down restaurant might be facing extinction sooner than we think.
The Anthologies of John D’Agata
Literary feuds often feel sad and empty, but intelligent, measured critiques advance human knowledge and get people thinking. Although not a response to the recent Atlantic piece about writer John D’Agata’s take/mistake on the essay form, this piece by another essayist adds many welcome dimensions to this ongoing debate around the definition and nature of […]
Chain Reaction
Cycling culture has the reputation for being a boys club filled with patronizing shop clerks and a highly stratified, male-centric attitude, but Canadian female mechanics are dismantling that gender normative bro-show and increasing access and respect for female cyclists.
‘See What Y’All Can Work Out’: The State of Empathy in Charleston
Charleston’s—and our nation’s—systemic racism, through the lens of the Dylann Roof trial.
Diseases of Despair: A Small Ohio City Fights an Epidemic of Self-Destruction
These women are trying to survive an epidemic of self-destruction in small-town and rural America. Death rates have risen sharply among whites, particularly women, particularly those with a high school education or less — the white working class that played a key role in the November election. Last year, overall life expectancy in the United […]
On Coming of Age and Sexual Identity: Darling Nikki
“How does a girl figure out, amidst the crushing misogyny all around her, how to pick out the avenues that will prove most emancipatory, pleasure-giving, and life-sustaining? I’m sorry to say that this skill remains as urgent now as it ever was, so maybe I have “Purple Rain” to thank for that, too.”
Becoming Ugly
“There are days when all I want is to become a human road sign, a blinking hazard to any man misfortunate enough to cross my path: ‘I WANT TO OFFEND YOUR SIGHT. I WANT TO OFFEND YOUR EVERYTHING.’”
A Resolute 2017: A Reading List
“As 2017 dawns, I thought I’d check in with my old self, dust off 2016’s goals and set some new intentions.”
In Defense of Facts
The essay is a flexible, accommodating form of writing based in fact. Writer William Deresiewicz takes writer John D’Agata to task for what he believes is D’Agata’s misleading account of the essay’s history, its form and its modern incarnation, and he skillfully dismantles the vague but inaccurate concept of the essay that D’Agata’s three large […]