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When Refugee Families are Separated, Women Carry the Burden
Ty McCormick | Beyond the Sand and Sea, One Family’s Quest for Country to Call Home | April 2021 | 3,518 words (20 minutes) A few weeks after Maryan gave birth to her first son, Mohamed, word came from...
View ArticleSwitch at Birth — But How?
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 113, “The Lives of Others,” by writer Lindsay Jones. In remote Newfoundland, a search for answers about a series of baby mix-ups leads to a woman known...
View ArticleDeconstructing Disney: Queer Coding and Masculinity in Pocahontas
Jeanna Kadlec| Longreads | April 2021 | 2,936 words (11 minutes) Disney often codes their villains as queer: This is widely known and accepted. First noticed by scholars during the Disney Renaissance...
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The Fracking Lottery
Colin Jerolmack | Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town | April 2021 | 2,303 words (8 minutes) Excerpted from Chapter 3: The Fracking Lottery Like...
View ArticleYou Robbie, You Baka
Brian Trapp| Longreads | April 2021 | 26 minutes (7,917 words) At the request of the families involved, some names in this essay have been changed to protect privacy. It includes depictions of...
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‘The Fledglings Are Out!’
Dara McAnulty | Diary of a Young Naturalist | May 2021 | 1,979 words (7 minutes) *** Prologue This diary chronicles the turning of my world, from spring to winter, at home, in the wild, in my head. It...
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The State We Are In: Neither Here, There, nor in Heaven
Madhushree Ghosh | Longreads | May 2021 | 16 minutes (4,261 words) Seventeen years ago, I receive the call most immigrants dread. It is inevitable, and yet. The call announces that my Baba, my...
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Queens of Infamy: Boudicca
Anne Thériault | Longreads | May 2021 | 18 minutes (4,866 words) From the notorious to the half-forgotten, Queens of Infamy, a Longreads series by Anne Thériault, focuses on world-historical women of...
View ArticleSentenced to Life At 16
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 114, “The Invisible Kid,” by writer Maddy Crowell. The year Adolfo Davis was arrested, he became one of 2,500 adolescents serving mandatory life...
View ArticleJudge a Book Not By its Gender
Lisa Whittington-Hill | Longreads | May, 2021 | 29 minutes (7,916 words) I blame Drew Barrymore for two things: the amount of money I have spent on celebrity memoirs and an unfortunate attempt to dye...
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Happy is a Relative State
Renée K. Nicholson | Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness | May 2021 1,977 words (7 minutes) *** Imagine, once you had performed splits in midair. Now, sitting in a doctor’s office chair,...
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The State of Waiting
Caitlin Dwyer| Longreads | May 2021 | 22 minutes (6,168 words) This story includes audio interludes. Listen to Wafa talk about her life, her relationship, and Yemeni culture through cherished...
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Even the Steam Had a Shadow
Natasha Pulley | The Kingdoms | May 2021 | 1516 words (6 minutes) *** 1 Londres, 1898 (ninety-three years after Trafalgar) Most people have trouble recalling their first memory, because they have to...
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‘Every Single Person Migrating Has a Story’: Caitlin Dwyer on the Emotional...
For couples and families separated by borders, financial circumstances, and national policies beyond their control, their relationships remain in limbo. As people spend months and often many years...
View Article‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 115, “The Snitch,” by Jordan Michael Smith. Jordan Michael Smith | The Atavist | May 2021 | 5 minutes (1,356 words) CHAPTER 1 Carle Schlaff wanted more...
View ArticleRoad Grad
Jill Talbot | Longreads | June 2021 | 9 minutes (2,508 words) The showers had been steady for days. Even when the rain broke, the weather app on my phone showed another coming storm. At night,...
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Mormonism’s Sci-Fi Swan Song
Andrew Kay | Longreads | July 2021 | 35 minutes (9,917) words) This story was published in partnership with The Point Magazine. Friday evening On a July evening in upstate New York, in a field long...
View ArticleI Miss it All
Devin Kelly | Longreads | July, 2021 | 17 minutes (4,874 words) Read Devin Kelly’s previous Longreads essays: “Running Dysmorphic,” “What I Want to Know of Kindness,” “Out There: On Not Finishing,” and...
View ArticleMy Seat at the Table
Bernice L. McFadden | Longreads | August 2021 | 15 minutes (4,049 words) I discovered through DNA testing that my first maternal ancestor in the United States came from the country in Africa now known...
View ArticleThe Cult That Promises to Cure Addiction
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 115, “The Love Bomb,” by Daniel Kolitz. Daniel Kolitz| The Atavist | July 2021 | 10 minutes (2,100 words) Prologue On Super Bowl Sunday, three weeks into...
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