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Why I Can’t Write a Good Personal Essay
At Tenure, She Wrote, a grad student explains her decision no longer to write narratives of inspiration and gumption: “A little smarts and hard work and luck can’t make my chronically ill body ‘productive.’”
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Hakai MagazineHakai Magazine explores our changing world through stories on oceans, coastlines, and marine life, written by today’s leading — and most engaging — scientists and environmentalists.
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Three Stories to Read this LGBT History Month
From The Golden Girls to 17th-century London, these stories explore the rich layers of queer history.
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The Adverts 250 ProjectEvery day, The Adverts 250 Project highlights ads from Colonial America, shedding light on the era’s material culture and everyday life, and showing the pervasive presence of slavery in 18th-century advertising.
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Tim Harford: The Undercover EconomistEconomist and journalist Tim Harford blends insights on technology, business, and, economic history into accessible and engaging posts on a wide range of topics, from inequality to social media.
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“Politics isn’t the most important thing. A supreme court nomination isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing, when stories like this are in the news, is the victim, and how we treat them, how we speak about them.”
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Design Mom
Designer, author, and AltSummit founder Gabrielle Blair created Design Mom in 2006; since then, she’s published thousands of posts on design and parenting, travel, food, and other topics (from the evergreen to the timely).
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The Problem with “Pretty Girls” and Princesses
“Our world focuses on the looks of girls and the accomplishments of boys.” At OTV Magazine, Angela Noel reflects on the gendered compliments adults give children, and how they make it hard for girls to separate their self-worth from their appearance.
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Preemptive Love BlogPreemptive Love is a U.S. nonprofit that focuses on aid and peacemaking in Iraq and Syria. Their blog tells the stories of the people and communities on the frontline, working to rebuild after years of violent conflict.
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Plodding Through The PresidentsAmerican history buffs, this one’s for you: Howard Dorre, who’s reading (and blogging about) a biography of every U.S. president, has published numerous posts on arcane-yet-fascinating aspects of the presidency.
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You Don’t Have to Live in Public
Austin Kleon on the need to gain a sense of ownership over our online lives: “Back [in 2013], the worst I felt social media did was waste your time. Now, the worst social media does is cripple democracy and ruin your soul.”
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“These ‘rules’ have shown impressive staying power. From cocktail parties to kitchen tables, these seemingly fascinating bits of grammar trivia have been repeated over and over, in some cases for centuries. Too bad they’re not true.”
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Why Emily Contois Is Still Blogging After Six Years
A recent episode of online trolling hasn’t stopped this food and media scholar from making her voice heard.
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On Boy Books and Girl Books
“Can we all agree that there is no such thing as a girl or a boy book?” Teacher and parent Pernille Ripp writes on the toxic effects of defining books by the gender of their supposed audience.
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Really, libraries don’t need reinventing, thanks.
Librarian Deb Baker rejects a recent op-ed calling for Amazon to replace public libraries: “Libraries are often the only egalitarian spaces in American communities, radically welcoming of everyone who comes through their doors.”
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