The Wizard Of Kabul
How a Peace Corps volunteer turned a high school basketball squad into Afghanistan’s national team.
Sean Flynn is a GQ correspondent and National Magazine Award winner.
"I find it satisfying to be able to give a voice to people that sort of get lost…You know, when these big horrible things happen, and the spotlight is very briefly on them, and then it moves away, and it's not that I'm dragging them out and forcing them to 'Relive your horrible moments!' It's more a thing of, 'If you'd like to relive your horrible moment, if you want people to know what actually happened, talk to me. I will tell your story.'"
Thanks to TinyLetter and the The Literary Reportage concentration at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute for sponsoring this week's episode.
The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In
Women who left their careers to be stay-at-home mothers reflect on the decision ten years later.
The Confessions of Innocent Men
Unpacking a false confession 20 years later.
E. B. White: The Art of the Essay No. 1
An interview on craft.
Nuke the Cat!
Script doctor Damon Lindelof explains the new rules of blockbuster screenwriting.
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How Much Is a Life Worth?
A profile of Ken Feinberg, lawyer who specializes in determining compensation after tragedies and disasters.
The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia
The Mennonite women of the Manitoba Colony would awake with blood and semen stains, dried grass in their hair, and tiny bits of rope on their wrists and ankles. Their rapists, armed with a veterinary tranquilizer converted to spray form, were eight young men from their own community.
Great Guns
The author, who died last week, tells the story of his guns.
Taken by the State
The use and abuse of civil forfeiture.
For the first time, Janet Reitman discusses her Rolling Stone cover story on accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
"My editors, myself, a lot of people who work for the magazine — we lived through an act of terrorism. We know what it feels like. There have been accusations to me personally of being insensitive, and I can tell you that I'm far from insensitive, not only to the political realities of terrorism but to the personal realities of terrorism. I breathed it in, literally. … The cover elicited an emotional response from people; that is not always what magazine covers do. I think it's great on a certain level, because terrorism is emotional, it's real, it affects us. It is not something that happens just overseas or just to people who are somehow "Other." If you talk to terrorism experts around the world, what they will all say is that the vast majority of people who are involved in these violent, extremist acts are what we would consider otherwise to be very normal people. One of us. Part of our community. That's a reality, and it's a very emotional thing and it makes people very uncomfortable. I totally understand that. But that was the point of my story."
Thanks to this week's sponor, Squarespace.
The Sports Cable Bubble
How cable sports channels extort hundreds of dollars per year out of every cable subscriber for programming that less than 10% regularly watch.
When Mom Has a Secret
Finding out your loved one is a notorious fugitive.
Thurman Munson In Sun And Shade
The last great brawling sports team in America—Reggie, Catfish, Goose, Gator, and the Boss—remember their fallen leader.
The Royal Prank
The inquiry into a nurse’s suicide after she was on the receiving end of a crank call.
Life and Death in Assisted Living
An investigation into the big and often troubling business of caring for aging Americans.
Did Goldman Sachs Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?
Shortly before leaving Goldman Sachs, Sergey Aleynikov downloaded around 32mb of source code from their high-frequency stock-trading system. Even as he was sent away for an eight year bid in federal prison, no one seemed to fully understand exactly what he did.
My Week in North Korea
Playing tourist in the isolated nation.
In the Violent Favelas of Brazil
Rampant rape and murder in the Brazilian slums.
To Live, the Oyster Must Die
The fight to save a “delicious gold mine.”
Stephen King’s Family Business
Inside a family of novelists.
Kelley Benham is a writer and editor at the Tampa Bay Times.
"People connect with this story in a really visceral kind of way, usually because of some experience they've had or someone close to them has had. I've had 90-year-old women crying into my phone about babies they lost 70 years ago. I've had people kind of sneak up to me and tell me about babies that have died that they don't talk about, but that they carry with them all the time. I've had premies who are grown up—those are my favorite—you know, "I'm 20 now and I have a scar just like Juniper's scar, and thank you for helping me understand who I am."
Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.
Elegy of a Race Car Driver
The life and sudden death of NASCAR’s Dick Trickle.
Sponsor: Michael Paterniti Answers Questions From His Editor
The author of The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese, interviewed by his editor, Andy Ward, about storytelling, literary heroes, and why the book took him 10 years to write.
