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I found myself as a potential representative of a larger group, which had no representative. There wasn’t a first-person story about Complex Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, so I thought, “I know how to do this.”
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Blair Braverman discusses her latest book, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North, gendered travel narratives, and the pressure to write about personal trauma.
...moreThis is a story is about a con that unfolded very slowly over two decades. When the con was finally exposed, some of the victims defended the people who had been fooling them. They preferred to believe the lie. NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast recently featured an episode called “The Heart Wants What It Wants,” a […]
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Writer Etgar Keret talks about his new memoir The Seven Good Years, the early criticism he faced as a writer, and the surreal that is always waiting.
...moreThis American Life spinoff Serial is a nonfiction podcast told over multiple episodes. Premiering back in October, Serial explores the case of Adnan Syed, who has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Much of the intriguing drama around the story stems from the fact that many aren’t convinced […]
...moreIf you’re in Los Angeles this Saturday, stop by the Bootleg Theater to celebrate the release of FOUND Magazine: THE EARLY YEARS, a compilation of the best stuff from the first issues of a magazine that collects found objects of all kinds. Founder Davy Rothbart will read about his favorite finds, as well as his […]
...moreIra Glass loses his voice; Ira Glass gets it back: The New York Times reports on This American Life’s risky split from PRI and venture into the world of independent programming (and don’t worry—it doesn’t sound like the storytelling is going away).
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Kim Fu reviews David Rakoff’s LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.,
...morePreviously, we blogged about Harper High School, where twenty-nine students were shot in a single school year, eight of whom died—not in what we think of as a “school shooting,” but in an equally deadly and frightening series of individual incidents. This American Life highlighted the school in a two-part episode a few weeks ago and […]
...moreAfter a year marked by several horrific mass shootings (on the heels of other years marked by somewhat fewer horrific mass shootings), gun violence has been on all our minds. This American Life addressed the issue with a two-part episode about the daily lives of students and staff at a Chicago high school where twenty-nine students […]
...moreElif Batuman’s The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them combines genres to tell stories about Batuman’s adventures as a graduate student.
...moreThis American Life has retracted its story “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory.” Ira Glass says that airing the episode was a mistake, asserting that Mike Daisey–whose one-act play was excerpted in the story—lied to Glass during the fact-checking process. Daisey has responded on his blog.
...moreGored by a banana on a barroom floor, a man lies supine as a nun slaps a midget, a down-and-out Santa drinks hard and a sullied beauty queen totes a severed head.
...moreTo list all the poetry and prose concerned with love and/or anti-love would be to write a list of all the books ever written, and so below is an extraordinarily incomplete list of a few very good links I’ve recently enjoyed that are either straightforwardly or obliquely about breaking up. Good enough to make This American Life‘s short […]
...moreHot off the presses is a new book by kids titled Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country. Students of non-profit writing center 826 Valencia have
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