Places
Why Are “Good” College-Application Essays So Awful to Read?
For many, our education in first-person writing begins with the college application essay, which rewards uplifting narratives with neat-bow conclusions. This is a bad thing.
A Final Kampai for Angel’s Share, My Favorite Bar in New York
Why not form friendship around a love of good drink, openness, and a desire to treat each other with fairness?
Teachers Are Told to Ignore Their Bodies, But Chronic Pain Made Me Listen to Mine
I have never been as vulnerable with students as I was then, having to tell the fifth graders I was in pain.
Hiking Through the Colonial History of America’s National Parks
There’s a religious ring to the language of appreciating public lands in America. But, as a South Asian woman and a first-generation immigrant, I am not a welcome pilgrim.
We Need the All-American Diner
Diners are affordable, accessible, and a staple of our national imagination. They’re also disappearing—and we need them now more than ever.
After the Family Cabin Burned
But there was also the feeling of home, and these feelings shiver still in my core.
Finding Peace at the Most Beautiful Taco Bell in the World
I need the ocean to quiet my thoughts, the surfers to remind me I’m a person, the Taco Bell as a place where I become solid again.
I Wrote an Essay on Sleep Paralysis to Finally Talk About Men’s Ugliest Urges
Once it happens, sleep paralysis tends to recur. It’s as if a spirit has marked your bed, like the first coming has irreversibly altered you.
My Parents’ Country Doesn’t Exist. I Moved There Anyway.
I was enjoying what exists of this place today—be it Croatia or Yugoslavia—without the need for comparison.
Before You Leave for Bulgaria
My husband’s grandfather wrote an immigration guide called “Before You Leave for America.” We could have used one in reverse—for moving to Bulgaria.
