Profiles are hard. Too often they’re drenched in the writer’s attempts to make the subject seem larger than life. But good profiles have the opposite effect: Through their honesty and attention to perhaps mundane detail — and, as Outside Magazine contributing editor … Read more
This week we’re getting a sneak preview of spring in Maine, and the two feet of snow is fast melting. But there’s still a bit of a chill in this week’s roundup, either the literal kind — a hilarious story … Read more
You know when you absentmindedly click on a product and an ad for the thing seems to stalk you online for the rest of your life? (I once thought the name “Mrs. Pasture’s Horse Cookies” charming. Now, with eternal repetition, … Read more
Why is it great? This piece about mining companies exploring the bottom of the ocean creates an upside-down outer space. The whole story is a kind of extended metaphor between the exploration of space and the exploration of the … Read more
Forget making little dolls out of corn cobs or embroidering samplers with snippets of homey wisdom on them: If it’s a dying art you’re after, look to the news obituary. Obit writers don’t get to witness wars or famine, … Read more
Just in time for the weekend, here’s a little list of some of the things I’ve been listening to and reading this week, some of it online — Storyboard included, natch — and some of it on vinyl or actual … Read more
Waad Janbi, a Saudi feminist and aspiring filmmaker, has long fought against misogyny using her hands–furiously typing on her smartphone or laptop. But last month, for the first time, she fought it using her feet. When I marched for … Read more
Why it’s great: The sentence is a story in itself. It creates a texture landscape in the reader’s mind (taste that rare scotch, sharp and warm in your throat; then feel the ache in your lower spine, and your own … Read more
Some writers work for decades before one of their pieces gets widespread attention. Ron Rosenbaum managed to pull it off with his second long-form magazine article. Rosenbaum’s 1971 Esquire piece, “Secrets of the Little Blue Box,” tells the story of … Read more
Just in time for the weekend, here’s a little list of some of the things I’ve been listening to and reading this week, some of it online — Storyboard included, natch — and some of it on vinyl or actual … Read more