Articles Tagged with #personalessays
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The Heartland Never Lies
The Sex Trade in Northwest Wisconsin
In a small town with a withering economy, rebellion is choosing college over your job at the X-rated drive-in.
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Personal Essays
The Age of Mechanical Reproduction
When it comes to in-vitro fertilization, nothing is normal. Your world is upside-down. Your doctor compliments your wife on her monkeys. Then, when every dollar and exertion has gone toward a single hour of hope, it begins to snow.
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Mothers and Daughters
Sorry About Your Generation
Fact: Today’s young women are scared to commit because Mel Gibson may attack them. Fact: Today’s mothers should keep their opinions to themselves.
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Personal Essays
Letters to a Pitchikoo
Shoes, cars, T-shirts—it’s easy for people to become attached to favorite objects. But something is horribly wrong when a girl begins writing fan mail to her ring.
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The Perils of Academia
Trust Me
A century ago food vendors were often confidence men, cutting their products with inedible substances. A study of the history of food adulteration reveals hucksters at every turn.
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Personal Essays
Where the Choices Are Endless
After a childhood in the country, awaking as a freshman in a college town, where the inhabitants are willing and strange.
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Personal Essays
Caught Telling Fiction
The gap between literary and historical fiction is mostly a marketing ploy—at least until a novelist meets a survivor of her story’s plot.
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Profiles
Fanboy
As America dreams of black ops teams, where do mutants belong? And can comics end wars? From Captain America to big blond Thor, Osama bin Laden, and beyond.
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Personal Essays
How the Dead Live
There’s a peculiar odor to burning hope—it’s the smell of exhaust fumes, human sweat, and a fast-food container interred under a seat cushion.
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Personal Essays
Not for Navigational Purposes
Maps are useful in jungles, classrooms, and when you need to cross a bombing ground during a storm. But they’re pointless when love implodes.
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Personal Essays
Will the Real Frank Smith Stand Up
Sharing a name with thousands of other men, even hundreds of thousands, can make for interesting email. Some of the messages that have landed in his inbox.
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Personal Essays
Work Is a Four-Letter Word
After 15 months of unemployment, our writer lands a job—complete with benefits, direct deposit, and a modern workspace design. Time to shop for dumpy sweaters.