Longform

A profile of Elizabeth Gilbert, whose bestselling memoir may have sunk her literary career.

On dirty laundry and the meaning of freedom.

The Granite Mountain Hotshots, an outfit of professional wildland firefighters, had 20 members. On June 30, 19 of them lost their lives.

Trying to prevent the next tragedy.

“It is overwhelmingly young people of color, and those who work in their schools, who will bear the brunt of these closings and witness the worst effects of the budget cuts. Over the last six months, the SDP and the state of Pennsylvania have decided, again and again, that this is acceptable.”

“Turns out your laptop—or camera or gaming system or gold necklace—may have a smidgen of Congo’s pain somewhere in it.”

One year later, a dispatch from Steubenville.

Auditing a bankrupt city.

“The only thing I’m able to conclude after my trip here is that it’s incredibly difficult for a poor country to go about getting un-poor.”

On a group of women whose lives were forever altered by the Leif Garrett episode of Behind the Music.

An interview with novelist Marilynne Robinson, conducted by a graduating student.

On boxer Canelo Alvarez.

The battle between government and industry for America’s best hackers.

Forty years after the dirty wars and Pinochet’s coup, photographer David Burnett journeys back to Chile to visit the subject of his most famous image.

Recounting an appearance on Letterman.

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How a series of lies and an incompetent lawyer led to a Florida woman’s wrongful conviction.

The prevalence of online threats against women and why the people who make them go unpunished.

A profile of Chencho Dorji, Bhutan’s first psychiatrist, who has treated “more than 5,300 depressed, anxious, psychotic and drug-addled” people since 1999.

An update to Into the Wild.

From bombs to a boxer, variations on a name.

How the Keystone XL became the defining environmental test of Obama’s presidency.

On Westmont College, a “feeder school” to the upper ranks of the Christian conservative movement.

On lucha libre’s exóticos, “wrestlers who dress in drag and kiss their rivals, never quite revealing whether the joke is on their opponents, themselves or conservative Mexican society at large.”