Twenty-one years ago, Domino’s Pizza ran a fairly mundane promotion: customers who purchased a large one-topping pizza would also receive an order of cheesy bread, on the house. This event would not have even registered for me, or anyone I knew, had Domino’s not advertised it like this:
Jennifer Lunden is the author of the astounding new book American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life. She’s also a good friend. This is Part 1 of our conversation about work, exhaustion, and writing while ill. Kate: I know American Breakdown has been a […]
This was first published October 4, 2021. It’s still the case. In regard to the wildness of birds towards man, there is no other way of accounting for it… many individuals… have been pursued and injured by man, but yet have not learned a salutary dread of him. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species Darwin’s […]
A long time ago I wrote a poem about change: how necessary it is, and how excruciating it can be. How it comes on its own timeline, whether we want it or not. Writing the first draft of this poem took years, and, appropriately, the poem has never stopped evolving. There will likely never be […]
For years, now, I’ve had a scrap of digital paper on my computer desktop with four words on it: Felicia, the Fermilab Ferret. A memorial to an extraordinary life. A reminder to channel the legendary little animal’s spirit into something strange and new. Little poems, perhaps. And, now, finally, I have. But first: her story. […]
NOTE: The images in this post are best viewed on a desktop device or tablet, not a phone. One dim November afternoon in Alabama in 1954, 34-year-old Ann Hodges curled up on her couch, pulled the quilts around her body, and fell asleep. She woke in pain and disorientation to a house full of smoke, […]
Madeline Ostrander is a passionate and talented science journalist and a good friend. Her must-read book At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth is on shelves now. KATE: What initially sparked this project for you? MADELINE: Like most people who’ve been writing about climate change for a long time, I’ve […]
This is Part II of my heart-filling conversation with Sabrina Imbler (they/them), a poet, essayist, science writer, and author of the forthcoming collection HOW FAR THE LIGHT REACHES: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures. If you missed Part I last month, you can read it here. Kate: What was the fact-checking process like for this […]