For more than a decade after The Bluest Eye marked her debut as a novelist, Toni Morrison remained a senior editor at Random House—a job in which, as any editor knows, writing rejection letters is an unfortunately crucial skill. Sifting through the hundreds of letters in Random House’s archives, Melina Moe draws out what made Morrison’s so special. Rejection is never fun, but it’s also rarely laden with this much empathy and thoughtfulness.
Editorial advice often boils down to show don’t tell, and literary critics like Ted Underwood, Andrew Piper, and Sinykin have argued that the language of sensory and embodied perception sets fiction apart from other genres, like biography. Morrison’s letters often bear this out. In 1979, she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they “describe people and events from a distance instead of dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are instead of being told.” Vivid scenery and precise details offer readers room to maneuver, a way to discover a world that resonates. A couple of months earlier, she gave similar advice to a young Bebe Moore Campbell (who went on to become a best-selling author). And, addressing one colorful character who had evidently dropped by the Random House offices unannounced to pitch their memoir, Morrison warned about conflating an eventful life with a well-crafted story. “Your manuscript was no less interesting than you were,” she noted; however, to make it publishable, “you would have to add the artifice (or art) that you said you decidedly would not do.”
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Amelia Tait | The Guardian | March 16, 2024 | 3,828 words
Imagine an encounter that changes your life, a random meeting in which you find your person. Amelia Tait’s fun piece highlighting four couples who met by chance was exactly what I needed. Tait’s story surprises as much as it entertains. Did you know that placing ads to find that missed connection goes back at least 300 years? “Though he may not have been the first, Samuel Reeves did it in 1709,” writes Tait. “Writing in the British periodical Tatler, Reeves sought the attention of a woman he had helped out of a boat. He ‘desire[d] to know where he may wait on her to disclose a matter of concern,’ he said, and provided an address where he could be reached.” Tait profiles four couples who—despite missteps, redirections, and the randomness of life—managed to reconnect and begin a long-term relationship. Each is worthy of a Hallmark movie but together, these stories are much more than just a series of meet-cutes. This piece is about the thrill of possibility as it is about the couples themselves; it’s about taking a risk in striking up a conversation, something that happens less and less often as we hide in plain sight behind our mobile devices. After all, you can’t lock eyes with your special-someone-to-be if they’re locked on your phone. —KS
Dan Zak | The Washington Post | March 16, 2024 | 13,358 words
On November 19, 2022, a shooter entered a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs and fired approximately 60 bullets in 38 seconds. Five people were killed. If not for Richard Fierro, an Army veteran who helped to subdue the shooter, there might have been more victims—hence the headline of Dan Zak’s profile. But Zak troubles the notion of “hero,” and rightly so. Fierro doesn’t wear the mantle comfortably: he channeled his adrenaline, his training, and even his personal trauma when he threw himself onto the shooter and pummeled his head over and over with a handgun. “The fight was endless, graceless—like nothing out of a movie,” Zak writes. I held my breath while reading this sequence. It is all sound, instinct, and movement, and it is raw, brutal, and disturbing. In Zak’s telling, praising Fierro for what he did, saying thank goodness you were there, misses the point: No one should ever be in Fierro’s position. No one should have to risk their life to stop a mass shooting. And no one should struggle to cope with that experience, which Fierro is now doing, alongside his whole family. His loved ones were in the club during the massacre; his future son-in-law was killed. At a gala in New York, while strangers toasted him Fierro asks, “How about a whole family with PTSD?” Zak puts a sharper point on the question: “How do you survive that?” —SD
Various writers | Pioneer Works Broadcast | March 21, 2024 | 11,738 words
I’ve never taken Adderall. Some of my friends in college, years ago, took it to help them study. Better that than the speed and meth that passed through our social circles, I thought. But recentstories on the drug’s shortage reminded me that millions of people depend on it to function and focus. This Pioneer Works Broadcast series is a kaleidoscope: nine writers sharing their perspectives and experiences on the prescription drug. Some are sobering, some are funny. All of them are intense in their own way. In “Tweaking on Main,” Danielle Carr writes about our internet addictions and digital behaviors and how Adderall and Silicon Valley go hand in hand. In “Adderall House Style,” Amber A’Lee Frost explains how you can identify prose written on Adderall. In “Tapering,” Kendall Waldman muses on how the drug was almost perfect, which was precisely the problem. It’s tough to highlight only a few here, and I recommend you read them all in one sitting. Taken together, the voices in the collection are a prism that reflects, distorts, and ultimately illuminates the complicated relationship people have with Adderall. —CLR
Devon Fredericksen | bioGraphic| March 21, 2024 | 4,248 words
Reading this essay, I realized I never made the glaring connection that eiderdown comes from a duck called an eider. After forgiving myself for my anatine ignorance, I thoroughly enjoyed Devon Fredericksen’s education on the matter, alongside Pål Hermansen’s beautiful photography to show me their appearance (boy eiders look cool, girls are brown). Spending time with the eiders of the Vega Archipelago, Fredericksen details their relationship with the 50-odd people who take up temporary residence as “bird keepers” during nesting season, watching over the ducks and collecting their oh-so-soft down once they leave. Fredericksen conjures some gorgeous images: The little houses that the keepers make for the ducks that turn the shore into “a Liliputian coastal village.” The six-foot-tall, Viking-lookalike keeper, who coos over the brooding mothers and tells them “how lovely they look.” This duck stewardship has been going on for 400 years, and despite some worrying statistics on duck decline, it’s a refreshingly positive relationship between humans and nature. The key, perhaps, is that it stopped being about money—the Viking, for example, only collects enough down for one duvet a year. There is no factory farming in these Liliputian duck houses (and some mansions, in case a duck prefers communal living). As Fredericksen writes, for these guardians, “love may be the most genuine reason to explain their continued engagement.” —CW
J.D. Daniels | The Paris Review | March 26, 2024 | 2,155 words
I’ve never read Moby Dick. I know that’s considered a grievous sin in certain circles. However, to those people, I say: well, how familiar are you with Pittsfield, Massachusetts? That’s what I thought! Not to brag, but I saw Dumb and Dumber in a mall there. Anyway. J.D. Daniels has read Moby Dick. Many times, apparently. Which is why he drove to Pittsfield to tour Herman Melville’s one-time home. Thankfully, you don’t need to have read Moby Dick to appreciate Daniels’ short but transportive piece. It would help if you like driving on back roads, or fried chicken, or art’s ability to influence your life. Or passages like “You want to be careful what you wish for. Inspiration means breathing. Fish breathe by drowning.” There’s plenty of Melville in here, sure, but you’ll absorb everything you need by dint of Daniels’ own fervor. A heartbeat thrums behind every knowing recitation, every memory, every word. And when you actually arrive at the tour, surrounded by people who, like me, haven’t read Moby Dick, you’ll fully understand Daniels’ numb disbelief. How can the world be full of people who have yet to experience such all-consuming beauty? —PR
Matthew Haag | The New York Times | March 24, 2024 | 3,004 words
Mickey Barreto, a man who’d checked into room 2565 of the New Yorker Hotel for one night, was able to claim ownership of the entire building using an obscure New York housing law. How did he do it? Matthew Haag explains in this bonkers story. —CLR
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For The Pulp, Jacob Baynham profiles the Bag Man, a bearded, balding man in his 70s who scoops abandoned dog poop on Mount Jumbo’s “L” trail in Missoula, Montana. Most days each week he displays what he’s collected in a colorful pile at the trailhead, sometimes with a passive aggressive note, hoping that hikers and runners will start picking up after their canine companions. He doesn’t even own a dog.
To me, the story of the Bag Man is about more than poop. It’s a story about obsession and the mysteries of human behavior. It’s a story about the rules we write down and the rules that go unspoken. It’s about community, shame and our delicate social bonds. Almost all of us have been on both sides of this. We’ve all felt the chagrin of being called out for breaking a rule, and at some point, we’ve all wanted to call out others for their bad behavior. Most can agree: People should pick up their dog poop. But the story of the Bag Man is about what we should do when they don’t.
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In 1992, mirroring the plot of the romantic comedy “Never Been Kissed,” San Francisco Chronicle reporter Shann Nix went undercover at a high school. Peter Hartlaub looks back at her reporting and the ethics of this scheme. Imposing our current values on previous work can be fraught, but Hartlaub comes at this with important questions, not judgment.
Jones immediately made friends with two fellow seniors named Erica and Heather, who’d been assigned by Vidal to show her around. She was also accepted into the Peer Resource Center, an innovative school program built like a clubhouse, where students talked about difficult issues and were encouraged by school counselors to mediate their own disputes. It was a petri dish of thoughtful discussion and raw emotion.
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There’s the journey and then there’s the destination—but there’s also the motivation. All three are on display in J.D. Daniel’s essay about driving to visit Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s onetime home and writing habitat. A memorable diversion for a slow Thursday.
Snow in the yards and snow on the roofs of Grafton, snow on the rocks, snow on the hills. A red-tailed hawk crossed left to right in front of my car so low I could see the brown and white marks on her belly. Snow on the banks of the stream at Auburn. Snow on the stonework underneath the power lines. Snow in the wide white fields. Snow falling on Charlton westbound service plaza. Coming into Palmer, the Quaboag River was partly frozen, white with snow. Coming into Wilbraham, Home of [illegible] Ice Cream, its sign was buried under snow. Coming into West Springfield, visibility got low at the Connecticut River. My car was encrusted with dirty road salt like a steak au poivre. I smelled like a french fry. Some of the huge spears of ice hanging from red and brown rock walls to the left and right were netted off, as if to discourage or prevent ice climbing. Made me want to do a bit of front-pointing.
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A gentle piece exploring the relationship between the people of the Vega Archipelago and the eider ducks who nest there. Mixing between the ecology and history of these islands, this is lovingly reported, and—for once—humans are portrayed as protectors rather than destroyers.
I visited Vega hoping to understand what drives someone like Stensholm to spend up to six months each year living mostly alone, without running water or electricity, on a sliver of ice-scoured strandflat at the top of the world. In a time when so many stories about humans and wild animals are about harm, habitat loss, or extinction, I wanted to witness an example of the ways humans and wild animals can not only coexist but benefit from one another. I wanted to see how a grown man’s heart could break over a duckling, not because he hoped to turn a profit but because he had inherited a legacy of love.
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This piece is simple, with the reporters detailing the meals of three families in Gaza over three days, counting their calorie intake. It’s a strikingly effective way of highlighting the reality of hunger: by removing the higher constructs and focusing on the day-to-day the concept of famine becomes more than just a concept.
After having nothing to eat for breakfast or lunch, the family managed to get hold of three tins of fava beans.
Umm Mohammed puts aside two tins, knowing they may not be able to get any food tomorrow.
“What should I do? If I feed them today, how will I feed them tomorrow? I keep thinking, how will I provide them with food for the next day?”
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