Narratively Out Loud: Recent Episodes
Narratively
We like to make a pretty big deal out of our memoir prizes and the winning essays, so you might have noticed that not only have we recently published the grand prize–winning essay of our 2025 Memoir Prize, “My Absolutely Chaotic Adventures at Sea During the Summer of 1984,” by Andrew Printer, but we also hosted a party and live reading to celebrate this monumental win. (Paying subscribers can check out the video of the live event here.) We’re here now to keep the party going. We love nothing more than hearing writers read their work in their own voices, so in the latest episode of our podcast Naratively Out Loud, we have Andrew reading his winning essay himself. Listen while you head out for your morning walk, get ready for brunch or drive to meet a friend for coffee. Enjoy!
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If you’re here, we know that means you like a good story — but we also know that sometimes it can be hard to sit down and actually read one. Did you know we have audio versions of most of our written stories? So, next time you’re on a walk, washing the dishes, folding the laundry, unpacking your groceries (oof, could we go on…), might we suggest pairing that rather routine experience with a Narratively audio essay to make it that much more enjoyable? Mallory McDuff’s new piece about her exploration of environmentally friendly end-of-life choices with her students is a great place to start — it’s about a subject matter we don’t collectively talk about enough, it’s thought provoking and it’s beautifully written. For audio versions of even more of our stories, head to our Narratively Out Loud podcast in Spotify, Apple or the podcast player of your choice. Still prefer to read? Find the written version of this story — the latest in our Personals section — here. Enjoy! —Narratively
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IVF has been in the zeitgeist for a while now. So many important stories have been told with candor about how real the struggle can be, the physical challenges, the emotional journeys people go on, usually ending in success. What we hear about less, though, is what it looks like when these journeys aren’t successful, the toll it takes monetarily and psychologically, the heartache that follows, but also the logistics. This essay, by the brilliant writer Angie Chuang, gives us a glimpse inside of that world. We’re so proud to present it.
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Today we have a first: a Personals essay written by our executive editor, Jesse Sposato, who usually oversees this very section, bringing in revealing and emotional essays from a wide array of writers around the world. This one — which is part of a bigger collection she’s working on about coming of age — is, well, very personal, and just in time for Valentine’s Day. Click play above to listen to an original audio version of this piece, narrated by Jesse herself, or head here to read the story. —Narratively co-founder Brendan Spiegel
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Happy New Year, Narratively fam! If you loved reading Ivy Eisenberg’s recent story “A Freak Accident Brought Me Closer to My Domineering Dad” (or listening to the awesome podcast version) we think you’ll also enjoy this hilarious Narratively Classic from Ivy. (For the record, we totally endorse quitting your job to reinvent yourself, but thought you’d enjoy this funny quitting-fail in this high season of resolutions and renewal.)
It’s 2003 and I am stuck in the bowels of Verizon’s IT department, in a g-d-awful boring job. I’ve been working for various IT departments in Corporate America for 20 years and writing jokes for imaginary stage performances on the side. With a house, a husband, and two millennial children who need to be fed a constant diet of pizza, smoothies, and games for their Xboxes, Game Boys and PlayStations, I am resigned to staying put. October marks my 47th birthday. I only have 20 more years of this corporate drudgery, I reason. I am coming down the home stretch.
One morning, I come up with a phenomenal business idea, which will propel me out of Verizon and make me rich and famous: I’m going to start my own line of custom corporate fortune cookies. I will write up work-appropriate fortunes and stuff them into homemade fortune cookies, to be handed out as party favors. But, here’s my brilliant spin: On the back, instead of “Speak Chinese” it will say “Speak Yiddish.” I call my new enterprise “Work Favors the Fortune-ate.” Instead of the morning marathon of packing the kids’ backpacks, getting myself out the door to work by 8:03 a.m., and applying my makeup in the car at each red light, I will sleep in, then waltz out at 10 in sweatpants for coffee. Instead of shopping at supermarket sales, I will luxuriate in Balducci’s, buying cantaloupe-sized grapefruits and grapefruit-sized oranges. I will get a driver to take me all over the city to lunches, dinners and galas in my honor. I will visit production plants across the country, speak about my rags-to-riches endeavor on the morning shows, and take a real family vacation to the Fiji Islands and Japan, not just a quick road trip to Cape Cod. Most important, I will buy a whole GameStop store for the kids, so that they will shut up about what they “need” next.
I arrange a prototype run by scheduling a mandatory team-meeting-slash-luncheon-slash-dessert-swap for the week before the December holidays. There are 22 people on my team, so I create my first line of 24 Verizon IT-friendly fortunes.
I type up the fortunes, using the same rose-colored font and style of type used in Chinese fortune cookies, and print the fortunes, front and back, on my color printer. I cut them into little strips of paper, and they look perfect. For example, one says, “HTTP 404: Not Found.” And on the back, it says, “Schmear: A spread or a bribe.” Another says, “Talk is cheap. Often cheaper on nights and weekends.” On the back: “Chutzpa: Nerve.”
Now I need to figure out how to make the cookies. I find a recipe online that seems impossibly easy to do, uses everyday ingredients, and sounds delicious. I can almost taste the success emerging from my oven. The night before the meeting, I throw pizza at the kids for dinner and lock them in their rooms by 8 p.m., giving me a full 12 hours before my 8 a.m. meeting. The recipe calls for baking the cookies for five to 20 minutes. I’ll do 12 minutes. At that rate, I figure, I can bake four cycles of six cookies each. I’ll be done in 48 minutes, then I can work on the actual meeting agenda.
It’s difficult to smooth out each round into a four-inch circle. After 25 minutes of mushing and pushing, I settle for three-inch circle-like masses. The first batch goes in — and comes out crumbly and overdone. I try for eight minutes. I get one cookie out, fold it — it works! I slip the little fortune in and drop it into a muffin tin.
I go to pick up the next one, and it cracks in my hand. I taste a crumb, and it’s yummy. I pick up the pan, forgetting my oven mitts, singe my fingers, and drop the pan on the floor. As I soak my burning fingers, I recalibrate. I will bake the cookies for six minutes, and I will only bake three cookies at a time. It is now 11:30 p.m., and I’ve made exactly one cookie. At this rate, they’ll be ready for the spring company picnic.
By 4:30 in the morning, 22 fortune cookies are done, although a stiff breeze would break half of them. The paper fortunes have turned translucent from the grease. They look like rice paper, not office printer paper. I gingerly place them in a Rubbermaid tub, cloak them in a tea towel, and carefully transport them to the office, where they join the other treats in the conference room for our holiday dessert buffet, which is a force to be reckoned with.
Amy, who’s missed all of her work deliverables all year, has turned out 100 chocolate snowballs with perfectly crisp outsides, covered in powdered sugar snow. Sandy, who works so hard in the office I never imagined she would set foot in a kitchen, has fashioned perfect miniature green wreaths out of Corn Flakes and Red Hots, with bright green icing. Janet shows up with sleighs made of Christmas candies. She has driven through three states to get here, yet her sleighs are fastened by melted peppermints, with such expert engineering precision they could tackle a sleigh ride in a blizzard. And Joey produces his “remarkable” chocolate pecan cookies. He’s been touting their remarkability all fall, but there isn’t actually anything remarkable about them. They’re just cookies (no humor or education or brilliance in his cookies). In the middle of this fabulous buffet is my Rubbermaid container with the stupid, cloaking tea towel.
At dessert time, I whip off the tea towel and declare: “Time for dessert.” Everyone is filling their plates with the other desserts, but no one is taking a fortune cookie. I walk around with the bin to each person and say, “Here, take one.” Everyone politely takes one. They work for me. They have no choice. But no one is eating them.
I walk over to Joey.
“Joey, open yours. Read it.”
He obliges. “May you have more bugs in your code than you have in this cookie.”
No one smiles. “Read the back,” I command.
Joey struggles. “Chaz – a – ray … Chaz a?”
“CHAZERAI!” I correct him. Joey’s from Canada. He can’t speak Yiddish.
“Amy, open your cookie,” I say.
“Can you hear me now?” she reads. She doesn’t get the joke.
“Look at the back!” I shout.
“Schmat … ”
I dive in: “SCHMATTA: RAG!”
Everyone opens their cookie. There’s barely a chuckle from the group. Certainly not the hearty guffaw I had expected from this team. There is one cookie left. I open it and read the fortune: “Do not quit your day job” it says. And on the back: “Oy vey.”
My fortune cookie debut and the team’s reaction are signs. I do not quit my day job. I’m still at Verizon three years later, in 2006. I’m about to turn 50, and I’ve made the sad transition from reading Glamour magazine to reading MORE magazine.
MORE is my North Star — 130 pages of bladder leak protection ads, interspersed with motivational tales of women reinventing themselves in midlife: becoming life coaches to other women, building cupcake empires, moving to Australia to save the wallabies.
A decade later, in 2016, MORE will cease publication. They will be no MORE. They will be edged out because they target an older female demographic, and we all know that women over 40 are supposed to be invisible.
The death knell is when MORE changes its tagline to “Women of style and substance.” No one wants a woman of substance. Everyone wants a woman with no substance, a vacuous wisp of a thing who has starved herself with a juice cleanse and had her eyebrows microbladed.
Aside from MORE weight and MORE debt, there isn’t anything MORE in my life — there’s a lot LESS. Less life left to live, less money, less sex.
My job at Verizon is a dead end. Literally. My office is below ground level, so if I jump out the window, I must jump up. I’ve been forced to downsize my dream team of 22 people to three. The three of us juggle 13 conference calls a week — mostly calls to justify why we’re behind on work.
We’ve been reorganized under an evil boss — a vile, miserable woman who works 200 miles away and only contacts me when she wants to pin blame for whatever mishap has befallen the creaky computer applications we maintain.
In late October, the day before my 50th Birthday, my boss sends me an email: “Ivy. We’re having a reduction in force. I need a name.” “Reduction in force” is another term for “involuntary separation,” which is corporate-speak for giving someone the boot.
I write her back, “We’ve been cut to the bone. We are only three people for 13 status calls. How can we lose one more?”
“I need a name.”
A shiver grips me. If I put my own name in, I may get seven months of severance, surely enough to reinvent myself. I’m turning 50, for god’s sake. I have half of my life ahead of me to do something brilliant and be profiled in MORE. I could do this! My neck gets hot, my eyes burn, and I type: “SUBJECT: A Name,” and in the body, “I-V-Y___E-I-S-E-N-B-E-R-G.”
Send.
Two minutes later the phone rings. It’s my boss. She never calls.
“Ivy, do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yes, I am putting my name in for the involuntary separation.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I’ve done it! My last day is December 31, and indeed, I’m granted a lot of severance pay, plus a year’s worth of medical coverage, and complimentary outplacement assistance.
I have plans. I will lose weight, overhaul my wardrobe, take up Zumba, cut my hair, become a famous singer, write a humor book, organize my house, plant and reap a vegetable garden, and potentially, open up a bed-and-breakfast as a weekend pastime. If I have a few months left, I’ll travel.
January 1, 2007: I wake up … and it’s a holiday, so I don’t need to do anything.
January 2, 2007: I wake up … and get a call from Suzanne, an eager-beaver representative from the outplacement assistance firm that Verizon has hired.
“How are you doing?” she asks, in a tone suggesting I might be in recovery from a major surgery.
“I’m great! I was just sleeping, and now I am toasting waffles.”
“Well, I thought I’d reach out so we can get started working on your résumé. So, what sort of job are you looking for next, Ivy?”
“Job? Oh, no, Suzanne, I’m not looking for a job. I am reinventing myself. I’m going to be looking for something very different.”
For the first time in my life, I go to the supermarket in midmorning, midweek, rather than on Friday or Saturday night. I can’t believe how many lettuce heads there are in the produce section. Mounds of them, full of fresh leaves and dew.
For the first time in my life, I’ll be able to see my kids getting off the school bus. I’ve worked nonstop from the time my son was 11 weeks old. He’s in middle school now. That first day, I run out to the front lawn at 2:43 p.m. to see him get off the bus and walk toward the house.
“Get in the house,” he whisper-yells at me. “Don’t you ever do that again!”
I am crushed.
I form a pattern: I go to Whole Foods for lunch daily because, as MORE magazine says, I should treat myself well while I am reinventing myself. The unemployment office is right next to Whole Foods, and I learn that if I go through the charade of applying for jobs at the unemployment office, they’ll just hand me money.
Here’s a little thing you might not know: When you get unemployment, you can elect to get a debit card, which gets magically filled with money every month. It’s not a lot, but it is enough of a windfall that I can buy Rainier cherries, heirloom tomatoes and smelly French cheeses at Whole Foods. The joy of paying for Saint-André cheese with a New York State Workforce Development debit card? Priceless.
I take up Zumba, and I discover that Zumba gives me a pain in my hip joint.
I spend February researching how to run a bed-and-breakfast. I learn it is the worst way to earn money: long hours, crazy guests. And I remember that I hate people, especially in the morning, sitting across from me, eating eggs benedict. People who will have sex on the Laura Ashley sheets and opine about the beautiful tree-filled bike rides they’ve taken. Yeah, no.
Still, I have fun purchasing decorative coffee pots and gingham valances on eBay, just in case. Maybe I should open a coffee store. I love coffee. I love coffee-related doodads. I love coffee cake. And tan walls. And body-pierced baristas! No wait, I hate body-pierced baristas.
I am exhausted by the end of February, and I discover that the one routine I’ve managed to keep up is napping. It is healthy. It is filling my soul. I am napping more than the cats. When I come downstairs, they cock their heads from their perch on the radiator, as if to say, “Eh, look who decided to get up.”
January’s gone. February’s gone. It’s March, and buds are beginning to form on the trees. I apply for a job or two. Four, five. OK, I send out about 115 résumés. I figure I’ll take a little job while I’m reinventing myself.
A few months pass, and I have only one interview — for a job cataloging online documentation at a huge financial services company, with a two-hour commute each way. I’m ready to take it, but in their eyes, “I am not the right fit.” The only not-right “fit” to my mind is my suit. All my non-Zumba-ing and stress snacking has shrunken my interview clothes.
In early June, I land a short-term IT consulting gig — sight unseen — out in the remote suburbs. It’s a job that no one else wants to do. I’m inside the tan walls again. I have my own little tan cubicle. And they’ve even tacked up a piece of paper with my name on it. I have to say, I love the smell of corporate coffee: that syrupy, burning smell of the Bunn coffee maker. It’s good to be back. The gig lasts 10 weeks, just long enough to destroy the possibility of a two-week summer vacation with the kids.
In early September, I get a call from my old boss, who is now at Company Y. They have an opening for someone with my diverse qualifications. He’s heard I’ve left Verizon. He’s heard through the grapevine that I am reinventing myself. It’s probably a very long shot, he admits … but, do I want a new job? Would I maybe? Pretty please? Would I consider taking a job? It’s way out in an even more remote suburb — about 50 miles east of my home. It’s a collection of job responsibilities that no one wants to do.
Do I want a job?
Yes, yes. I do. I DO want a job, I DO want a job. Damn, I WANT A JOB.
A girlfriend encourages me to take this less-than-ideal job in a less-than-ideal location by saying, “Nothing is forever.” She’s right. If I don’t like it, I can just leave and seek another opportunity. They are so easy to come by at my tender age. The week of my 51st birthday, I slink into Company Y, my tail between my legs. But I will have another brilliant business idea. I can just feel it.
Ivy Eisenberg is a writer, storyteller and comedian whose essays have appeared in New York magazine, Tablet, Narratively, Next Avenue, Business Insider and Chicken Soup for the Soul. She is working on a memoir about growing up in the groovy and turbulent 1960s in Far Rockaway, Queens.
This story was originally published on December 31, 2019.
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``` I moved into a haunted building in a ritzy resort resort town and sank into a terrifying depression. I never dreamed the thing that saved me would be the woman who died in my apartment.
```
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Over the summer, we launched The Personals, a new series of essays about smaller — but still largely impactful — moments. This latest one from writer and comedian Ivy Eisenberg is an absolute delight. We felt like we were right beside Ivy as she tried to dodge her father and vie for his approval all at once. Listen to Ivy read it aloud in her own voice here (and if you want to read the piece yourself, head here).
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``` These suburban mothers are deadly serious about chasing ghosts.
```
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It’s not hard to see why Laura Green-Russell’s story stood out as the grand prize winner in our first-ever Narratively Memoir Prize. This riveting read immediately captured our attention when Laura submitted it back in 2022. Laura recently joined Narratively Academy for a special live conversation on How 3 Writers Penned Narratively Memoir-Prize Winning Essays. If you’re thinking about submitting to this year’s Memoir Prize and need some inspiration, give Laura’s story a listen, and then head over to our Open Book podcast feed to hear the conversation with Laura and the other Memoir Prize winners.
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This story was written and narrated by Seth Lorinczi.
It was edited by Jesse Sposato, Narratively's executive editor.
All the music in this episode was performed by Golden Bears and Seth Lorinczi.
This episode of Narratively Out Loud was produced and sound deigned by Matthew Nelson, and executive produced by Noah Rosenberg, Narratively's founder.
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Joe Tamburino was a longshot. Describing his path to becoming a professional hockey player any other way would be an understatement.
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My Secret Life as a Personal Assistant to 'America’s Most Eligible Man'
He was the former star of an uber-popular reality dating show. I was a feminist lesbian 19-year-old—a.k.a. the least likely person on Earth to become his coach in life and love.
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A Gilded Age tale of seduction, betrayal and revenge.
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Najib Faizi has survived death threats, beatings, kidnapping and more, becoming a fearless role model for LGBTQ refugees everywhere.
I was just looking to make rent when I stumbled into a part-time gig stealing secrets from Wall Street elite. I made millions once I realized how desperate we humans are for someone who will actually listen.
I was a wide-eyed scholarship kid among daughters of the rich and famous. I expected academic rigor and supportive sisterhood—not humiliating midnight raids. But the most shocking thing to everyone else was when I stood up for myself.
A Florida funeral escort who took his road-safety duties a little too seriously became a widely ridiculed Internet sensation—and landed in hot water with actual law enforcement. But that’s only the start of the strange and twisted ballad of Jeremy Dewitte.
David and Jeannie Smith gave up their day jobs for a life of daredevil stunts —with six children in tow. Five decades, thousands of cannon shots and multiple Guinness World Records later, this stupendous family business is still defying gravity and all other expectations.
Nicholas McCarthy was born in the 1990s without a right hand. Paul Wittgenstein lost his in World War I—and then left behind a musical treasure trove that would change Nicholas’ life. Listen to our collaboration with the hit podcast Snap Judgement.
In opulent seaside Newport, a wealthy and beloved Black businessman turns up dead. The prime suspect is his son-in-law, a dashing medical student set to become one of the country’s first Black surgeons. The resulting trial will tear the town in two.
I have learned all the stories my father was too protective of me to share, parsed the conflicting histories and studied the maps. Now I can finally recreate our family’s lost home, in a once small village in Palestine.
As an Indonesian adoptee in Sweden, I was alarmed when my new stepbrother started dabbling in white supremacy. I didn’t realize how far it had gone until I was lying in a dark field, getting kicked in the chest with a steel-toed boot.
It was the era when video killed the radio star, when glitz and glamor and bubblegum pop dominated the airwaves. Meanwhile, a handful of musicians and misfits were subverting the pop culture narrative forever.
I was 13 when my father was killed right before my eyes. Two weeks later, while everyone in our small town obsessed over his grizzly death, I embarked on a new horror: 8th grade.
As a disillusioned cub reporter, I jumped at the bizarro job of a lifetime: editor-in-chief of Playboy Russia when nouveau riche Moscow was a hedonistic playground of sex, drugs, and early-stage capitalism — until Putin’s rise brought my reign to a screeching halt.
Riding the emotional rollercoaster with “Loogy,” “Barefoot” and the most dedicated family of Mets superfans as they root, root, root for the hardest-luck team in sports.
Students say the University of Michigan’s Sigma Phi chapter is a vital, lifesaving space, and that going all-gender was the obvious thing to do. The national organization responded by suing them.
I woke up one morning in my mid-thirties and suddenly couldn’t see. I vowed if I ever got my vision back I would live life differently — I had no idea that would mean flying down highways twice the speed limit with a colorful crew in the dead of night.
In a Bible-belt state where sex toys stores are illegal, a church-going grandma, enterprising mom and sassy granddaughter build a booming business hawking penis pumps and butt plugs—and helping every person find their path to pleasure.
For two centuries, an extreme protectionist policy barred foreigners from setting foot inside Japan — except for one tiny island, a cramped cultural crossroads where anything could, and did, happen.
Our wealthy California school had a hookup game where boys “drafted” girls, then tracked their sex acts. A decade later, my classmates still debate whether “FSL” was harmless teenage hijinks or a symptom of toxic rot in our elite enclave.
The new owner of Argentina’s de facto national treat stopped paying his majority-female workforce — so they seized control of the entire operation.
Andrea Knabel spent countless hours searching for missing people. Then one day she was the one who disappeared. Her family and friends—and half the internet—are still searching.
Is Steve Pankey a cold-blooded killer who got away with murder for decades, or just a true-crime obsessive craving attention?
When the Great War sent the men of Europe to the front lines and left a legendary family business on the brink of bankruptcy, two brave women stepped into the ring.
After the King of France beheaded a nobleman on questionable charges, his devastated widow transformed into “the Lioness of Brittany” and spent the next decade exacting her revenge.
Renegade developers co-opted this controversial video game’s source code to build a complex alternate universe where breaking character is the cardinal sin. Millions tune in to watch.
In 1840s Vermont, Achsa Sprague swore that the spirits who miraculously helped her walk again also possessed her with a crucial mission: freeing every soul in America.
Everyone from bawdy bachelorettes to married lesbians pay Ray the masseur to get them off. And he gloats that when it comes to female pleasure, he’s the G.O.A.T.
Cocky male monarchs underestimated Queen Amanirenas for her gender, her race, and her disability. Each time, they did so at their own peril.
In a sleepy corner of Connecticut, a radical band of leftists are sneaking out after dark to tackle the homelessness crisis that has spread to every corner of America.
I fell 20 feet out of a redwood tree and when I came to, my memory was shattered and a man I’d broken things off with was telling everyone we were together. Then I found out why.
As James V came of age, his evil ex-stepfather and a counsel of unscrupulous gatekeepers hatched a scheme to keep him from power: distract him with an ungodly amount of intercourse.
The incredibly colorful true life story of Dick Kulpa, a nerdy small-town kid who loved cartoons so much that he became one.
How did a respected and beloved medical professional end up leading a multi-million-dollar anti-aging scheme—and staring down decades in prison?
When the Duffy Brothers were deported from the U.S, they hatched a plan to bring Bonnie-and-Clyde-style armed robbery across the pond. Their plan had more holes than a bullet-riddled safe.
I was an 18-year-old father who couldn’t be there for his baby. I know, you’ve heard this one before. How about this part? Twelve years later Krystasia’s mom walked away and never came back.
A 1930s writing contest celebrates the inspiring endurance of the teenage spirit — in the form of heart-bursting crushes, angsty soul-searching and secret sexcapades.
In tribal communities across Namibia, older, eccentric people are often accused of witchcraft and violently attacked. One man realized it was something else entirely.
As Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation, the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters started to fly. This epidemic of “blinding by police” inspired our unlikely network of survivors.
Complete strangers wiring me $15k on the spot, smuggling blond ponytails across the Atlantic, secret rendezvous under the overpass — I just may have had the weirdest side hustle of all time.
In gritty 1980s New York, one West Village flophouse became a last-chance refuge for addicts, criminals, LGBTQ runaways, and anyone with nowhere left to go. And my mom was their queen.
In 1794 the people of Guadeloupe briefly tasted freedom. A woman named Solitude decided she’d rather die than go back into chains — but her heroism was nearly lost to history.
As a reptile-obsessed teen, I ran away to hunt lizards in the Everglades, then hatched a plan to milk venom from deadly snakes. It went even more comically wrong than you're thinking.
A half-century after he helped liberate Dachau, Felix Sparks lost his grandson to gun violence. His surprising victory reminds us how one determined person can take on political giants.
Aphra Behn was the first English woman in history to work as a professional writer. The only thing more colorful than her boundary-pushing stories was her own secretive life.
In 1978 he was music’s next big thing. Then his album bombed, he began a long slide into obscurity, and a bizarre fraud sent him to prison. Will Dane Donohue finally get his encore?
As a filmmaker, I thought I could write the screenplay for my own love life. When I got lost in a hailstorm at 12,000 feet, searching for my ex, I realized I desperately needed a new ending.
The vaudeville dancer and his beguiling Parisian wife arrived in Manhattan in 1911 with secret identities in tow. They enjoyed wealth and notoriety for years—until it all came crashing down.
This block in Brazil has been home to one of the deadliest skyscraper disasters in history, a doctor with a murderous secret, and—some say—a curse that goes back centuries.
Kidnaped at 9 by Joseph Kony’s vicious guerilla army, Dominic Ongwen was groomed to kill. Is he a lost soul deserving of mercy, or a cold-blooded war criminal who must face justice?
He pushed past brutal racism to become the first Black player in major league sports—a year before Jackie Robinson—yet even his own kids never knew his full story. It’s time everyone did.
In 1917, a ship collision caused the biggest accidental blast the world has ever seen. While the city’s male leaders dithered, a band of volunteer nurses leapt into action.
After the sudden and intense drama of getting hit, they suffered from devastating symptoms that wouldn’t go away. It seemed like no one could help—until they found each other.
A 19-year-old student was inundated with lewd messages and fake Facebook profiles pretending to be her. The most shocking part was the person behind it all.
At this lawless encampment of rickety RVs, residents face eviction, addiction and machete battles, but their self-made community is the only thing they have.
A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water—and daringly set out to catch it—only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest.
``` My dad, Dr. Drew, spent decades hosting Loveline, which gave guys the wrong idea about my own expertise in bed. No one ever saw me for me—until I figured out how to see myself.
```
``` In fourteenth-century England, one of the only ways a woman could get a divorce was if her husband was impotent. But first, she had to prove it in court.
```
``` Pengsoo was created for children’s television, yet it became such a surprise sensation with adults that it was named South Korea’s person of the year. Now it's ready to take over the globe.
```
``` I moved into a haunted building in a ritzy resort resort town and sank into a terrifying depression. I never dreamed the thing that saved me would be the woman who died in my apartment.
```
``` When a serial killer terrorized 1970s Seattle, these women banded together to defend themselves. Now they’re teaching a new generation to take control.
```
``` I should have expected my relationship with my boyfriend to crumble during quarantine. More surprising is that I fell back in love with my husband.
```
``` Living on a remote oil platform 60 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico is no easy assignment. Now imagine being one of the first women to ever step on board.
```
``` Fifty years ago, young idealists swore to end American injustice. When their movement splintered, their lives diverged—from quiet college prof to infamous kidnappers to filthy-rich hotelier.
```
``` With anti-LGBTQ hate crimes on the rise, groups like the Pink Pistols have seen membership soar. After an attack in my hometown, I understood their need to defend themselves.
```
``` Growing up, I thought everyone’s parents told them bedtime stories about being chased by the secret police and dodging bullets. As an adult, I started to wonder just who Dad really was.
```
``` Horace Fletcher preached the gospel of fanatically chewing food until it completely dissolved in the mouth. Even celebs like Upton Sinclair and Franz Kafka drank the Kool-Aid.
```
``` I married my childhood best friend when we were still young...then fell in love with my running partner. Welcome to a love triangle more intense than any marathon.
```
``` Once you have obtained the future you were fighting for, it’s time to rewrite history.
```
``` After legitimizing your fake news channel, transition into all-out information warfare. (And bring in a few real guns, too.)
```
``` You can rile up the public by confusing and polarizing them. The key is to exploit their own existing vulnerabilities.
```
``` To get the people on your side, you need to change the media narrative. A few hired hacks and a “passive sabotage program” will do the trick.
```
``` In advance of full-blown psychological warfare, seeds of doubt and conspiracy must be planted and watered.
```
``` Before launching an information assault, build out a network of agents and scapegoats that will allow your own government to maintain “plausible deniability.”
```
``` Once upon a time in Guatemala, the CIA hired a cocky American actor and two radio DJs to launch a revolution and oust a president. Their playbook is being used against the U.S. right now.
```
``` Jay J. Armes is a legendary and controversial Texan investigator with hooks for hands and six decades chasing criminals. This was his most epic murder case ever.
```
``` After being threatened with her life, this democracy activist packed up and fled. Now she’s fighting from afar—with one eye always over her shoulder.
```
``` My first attempt to meet him turned out to be a cover story for my parents' messy split. Thirty years later, I decided to find Pee-wee on my own terms.
```
``` On the 75th anniversary of the A-bomb, a Japanese-American writer speaks to one of the last living survivors—and traces connections from Malcolm X to the fight to end nuclear war.
```
``` As a jaded TV news producer covering a murdered musician, a sexist mayor, and a brewing protest movement, I had no choice but to become a part of the story.
```
``` On the dark streets of a college town, two teenagers hoisted a rock and ended a man’s life. His loved ones want to know when we’ll finally value the lives of homeless people.
```
``` In the age when Rollerblades were king, a crew of wide-eyed rookies and grizzled NHL vets brought hockey-on-wheels to the cusp of the big time.
```
``` I was the only woman on a volunteer crew sent into the jungle to defend a dwindling bird population from pet-trade poachers. And I saved my sense of self in the process.
```
``` When the oceanographer who discovered whale songs met the paralyzed disability rights leader, they began a quest that grew more dangerous and beautiful than they ever imagined.
```
``` From the English Channel to the Pacific, one band of volunteer divers look for the remains of American M.I.A.s. I joined and discovered this mission can be perilous — even deadly.
```
``` From the South Side of Chicago to tiny off-the-grid Carolina farms, a growing number of Black women are reclaiming the land — and their mental and physical health in the process.
```
``` I was nursing a devastating breakup when I suddenly found myself in Switzerland, trying to talk my way into Freddie Mercury’s birthday party. It was the best decision I ever made.
```
``` What do a crew of talented musicians do when forced to serve at the pleasure of a notoriously cruel dictator? They play like their lives depend on it.
```
``` After I was injured in a school shooting, I found unexpected comfort in binging grisly TV shows and podcasts. And I’m not the only one.
```
``` I spent years practically glued to my computer. Then one heartstopping encounter left me thankful to be alive – and made me realize I wanted to live much differently.
```
``` When COVID flared in Panama, 20 travelers from 18 countries holed up in this eco-village and shut the gates. Things in the outside world got worse, and now they might never leave.
```
``` When the neighbor boys harassed me, my dad grabbed his rifle and set booby traps. Cops were called. Death threats were made. One thing was certain: He would never let them win.
```
``` Little was known about the mystery disease that was ravaging the ancient kingdom of Mari. But King Zimri-Lim knew the key to stopping it was social distancing — and no small amount of patience.
```
``` Living with a rare vulvic condition is painful enough. But the worst part is navigating the nightmarish health care maze that can make women feel invisible.
```
``` Patricia Pérez uses her grandmother’s ancient map of the desert to forage for plants and herbs no one else on Earth can access.
```
``` Walter Francis White helped the NAACP document the truth about lynchings in America. The fact that he could pass as caucasian came in very handy.
```
``` After my parents got divorced, Dad began a slow slide into isolation. Eventually he found consolation in the darkest corners of the web. Can I help him get back out?
```
``` We barely knew each other as kids, but years later I was still so fixated about his death that I got a tattoo of his name. At 30, I decided it was finally time to figure out why.
```
``` Christopher was an ancient Egyptian prisoner. Stephanie's dating the man who had her murdered. They and many others swear by the controversial benefits of past-life regression.
```
``` I was a bored high schooler when I made up a harmless story about the creature from the sandpits. Decades later, its legend still haunts our small Southern town.
```
``` As colonists spread across North America, Louis Riel took up arms against the state — and was demonized in Canada’s history books. After 150 years, it’s time to reevaluate his legacy.
```
``` Nothing worked to ease the pain of chronic illness — until I discovered bee venom therapy. Now I’ve stung myself thousands of times, and found a community of people who became my closest friends.
```
``` I vowed to spend the coronavirus quarantine focused on looking inward and improving myself. Then I went on one virtual date and everything changed.
```
``` On America’s interstates, brazen bands of thieves steal 18-wheelers filled with computers, cell phones, even toilet paper. And select law enforcement teams are tasked with tracking them down.
```
``` When King Erik VII of Denmark was forced from the throne, he did the only thing any self-respecting descendent of Vikings could: He joined the warriors of the sea, and hit right back at his enemies.
```
``` At these frighteningly realistic boot camps, reporters like me train to cover everything from endless war to deadly pandemics — and create camaraderie that we’ll carry to every assignment.
```
``` Robert Holmes taught his sons everything he knew about exposing black-market knockoffs. Now they take down the world's biggest scammers while dodging threats from the mob.
```
``` Through a life of crime that spanned five decades, Linda Calvey’s husbands and lovers kept turning up dead. Now she’s out of prison, turning 72 today, and determined to clear her name.
```
``` At work, I’m a ghost: always heard, never seen. But mastering the voices of celebrities and politicians helped me learn to speak for myself.
```
``` He’s been a Beverly Hills rich kid, a teen on the run with his drug-kingpin dad, and a homeless father scraping to get by. Next stop for Blair Cobbs: world champion boxer.
```
``` As a freelance journalist, I’ve struggled financially for years. Then the pandemic hit and I got thrown on the street. But I will go on — I always do.
```
``` After the loss of three loved ones, Jacqui McLoughlin was debilitated from grief. Then one moment at a Flaming Lips concert changed everything.
```
``` In this time of Islamophobia and hatred, I needed to understand what made a white stranger open her home to us.
```
``` Interned during WWI, circus entertainer Joseph Pilates used found materials and his fellow prisoners as his test lab, and imagined an exercise system that would captivate millions.
```
``` As a kid, I thought I was too fat to dress up as my favorite cartoon characters. As an adult, I discovered a subculture that became one of the greatest joys of my life.
```
``` The world’s most obsessive breakfast-food fans demonstrate just how far humans will go for the sweet taste of nostalgia.
```
``` When I bumped into the other Davon Clark in college, it was funny. When friends confused our dating profiles, it was weird. When he got in trouble with the cops, my life started to fall apart.
```
``` Sixty-six years before the infamous spilled McDonald’s coffee, May Donoghue drank a ginger beer with a dead mollusk in it and changed personal-injury law forever.
```
``` Only in America does a friendly substitute teacher with a mountain of medical debt spend her nights serving summonses to other desperate people like me.
```
``` Legions of phony psychics have twisted an ancient West African tradition into a billion-dollar business that cons desperate and lovelorn people. One band of volunteers is determined to stop them.
```
``` How an audacious con man with fake ties to the pinnacles of the church ran an epic scheme and swindled those who trusted him most.
```
``` “Jolly Jane” Toppan overcame a miserable Dickensian childhood to become a medical professional patients adored. She was also slowly murdering them one by one.
```
``` My mission as a hospital clown was bringing laughter to life’s darkest moments. One little kid in chemo taught me what the job was really all about.
```
``` In the era of online dating, one septuagenarian Irishman clings tight to a method passed down through the generations—and thousands of happy couples are luckier for it.
```
``` By night I was a queer butch artist. By day I worked with guys who were handy with a hammer and quick with a gay joke. Both worlds taught me about being a man.
```
``` Most war reenactors are older men, but 27-year-old Lillian Fehler stands out for designing uniforms that are historically accurate down to the tiniest details.
```
``` My thankless, bizarre job made me feel like I’d be more valued if I just died at my desk and gifted them my corpse.
```
``` Bribery! Impeachment! Drug smuggling! Gambling! Judges getting drunk in the chambers! The Florida Supreme Court scandals of the 1970s make today’s political circus look tame by comparison.
```
``` The summer my parents’ marriage was falling apart, my best friend’s two moms saved me—even though my dad said they were going to Hell.
```
``` From the moment DeFord Bailey stepped onto a stage in Nashville, country music would never be the same. It was decades after his death before he finally got his due.
```
``` When I came out, I rejected the church before it could reject me. But an unlikely friendship formed over cash-stuffed briefs showed me a new way to have faith.
```
``` Their journey starts in a country where gay marriage and surrogacy are illegal, and spans four years, two continents, and hundreds of thousands of dollars—all to get a kid of their own.
```
``` At first it seemed like the talent scout genuinely wanted to help. Before I knew it, I was trapped in a middle-aged man’s house with creepy rules and sadistic, cult-like punishment.
```
``` Eighty years ago this winter, a freezing Finnish farm boy took aim at the unstoppable Red Army — and became the greatest sharp-shooter the world has ever seen.
```
``` My fantasy was to escape from the corporate grind. After a taste of freedom and months of hare-brained schemes, I begged to be captured again.
```
``` One man's unlikely journey from servant and prisoner of war to bodybuilding champion — with an epic, trans-continental love story along the way.
```
``` Before his rapid rise to the top of the Catholic Church, Pius II had a secret passion for scandalous stories. And they may have been inspired by his own life.
```
``` I was raising two young boys after my husband died, taking any writing gig I could. My 40 novels about dragons and exploding creepers helped connect us more than I ever imagined.
```
``` Drawing on ancient Tibetan practices and a very human need for companionship, these people believe they have figured out how to create sentient beings within their own bodies.
```
``` As a shy teen, my cure for loneliness was a weird and wonderful world where we created fake celebrity profiles — and formed surprisingly intimate connections.
```
``` The grisly murder of Athol McCowan gripped a sleepy coastal region in Australia. But even more shocking was how the killer’s exhumed pet dog served as star witness in the trial.
```
``` When I became a mom at 19, my depression spiraled out of control until I reached a delirious state. I was very much alive, but certain I'd been dead for years.
```
``` My parents love the tale of how our ancestors’ whaling ship capsized, turning the crew into cannibals. As an environmental reporter, there’s no story I dread hearing more.
```
``` He pioneered a version of this ancient sport in which animals aren’t hurt, drawing legions of fans to a sleepy Texas border town. His last wish: someone to carry on his legacy.
```
``` How one enterprising Mainer is harvesting a new cash crop — and building a powerful support network for women who need it most.
```
``` The world of mean girls and cliques was a startling change from working alongside my primatologist parents. Fortunately, I’d learned a bit about navigating vicious social structures.
```
``` How staying perfectly still for tips — despite tourists’ bewildering lack of boundaries — taught me to stand my ground in life.
```
``` After years of terror and abuse, the simple act of speaking paralyzed me with fear. Now I will never be silent again.
```
``` Privacy is rare, quiet hours are sacred, and don’t even think about hooking up. Meet the grown-ups who call the glorified dormitories of PodShare home.
```
``` Entertaining kids with inflated animals is tough—and when you’re a math-team nerd competing for gigs against your charismatic crush, it can blow up your entire life.
```
``` At 11, Estella killed her rapist and fled to the U.S. Fifty years later, she’s revealing the story that made her the resilient woman she is.
```
``` My whole life, any time something has unnerved me — from high school math to childbirth class — my heart rate slows, the blood stops pumping to my brain, and I drop like a rock.
```
``` The North Carolina Klan thought burning crosses would scare the Lumbee tribe out of Robeson County. That’s not how things went down.
```
``` When corruption threatened the administration of Chester A. Arthur, one ordinary woman put pen to paper. Julia Sand’s passionate letters caught his attention, and rewrote history.
```
``` As my hands addressed their aches and pains, my clients shared their fantasies and fears with 15-year-old-me. Little did they know, I was dealing with family drama of my own.
```
``` So many Indian farmers are killing themselves that bodies pile up at the end of one long canal. Gurbaksh Singh helps their families find closure.
```
``` I thought it was hilarious when my friend in medical school snuck me into the exam room—until I was asked to lead the procedure.
```
``` When a wealthy white woman turned up dead in 1944, Philadelphia wasted no time sending her black maid to the electric chair. But did anyone care about the truth?
```
``` It started with a simple Craigslist ad. Before long I was being sent on sketchy tasks, pocketing wads of cash, and trying not to think about where his money came from.
```
``` Sky Brown wowed the internet with her jaw-dropping videos before she even hit grade school. Her next trick: earning a spot in the 2020 Olympics.
```
``` I had a gun in my hand when I decided to finally give that open-mic night a shot. Seven years later, I’m a professional comedian.
```
``` A century ago, a cadre of women demanded to be freed from the tyranny of fashion. Their innovative ideas and radical demands—pockets!—took the country by storm.
```
``` Judith Rizzio has spent a lifetime on the frontlines of feminism. She thinks there’s nothing more radical than women of a certain age declaring fashion is for them, too.
```
``` After leaving the Children of God, I was so proud to join the Army. But then I had to ask myself: Was I trading one culture of blind obedience for another?
```
``` A year ago today, the FBI suddenly shut down a remote mountaintop observatory with no explanation. The Internet went wild with theories.
```
``` My detailed fantasy life began with explicit X-Files fan fiction in junior high. It took a long time for real-life sex to catch up.
```
``` He built at $60,000-a-month business selling opioid alternatives out of his apartment. His clients say he saves lives. The government wants to shut him down.
```
``` I'd given up on a music career when a song I posted online took on a strange new life. Suddenly I had a #1 hit, and an entire new life on the other side of the world.
```
``` After nearly dying while filming “The Wizard of Oz,” Margaret Hamilton spent the rest of her career trying to escape her character’s evil shadow.
```
``` How I built a lucrative career (and gradually sold my soul) playing caricatures of awful white dudes on black TV shows.
```
``` In a country known for being modern and precise, an ancient healing practice passed down from the heavens has surprising staying power.
```
``` Being a young, tattooed queer person in this hoity-toity world hasn’t always been easy. But I’ve found a way to follow my passion while letting my freak flag fly.
```
``` Through diplomatic placements that sent us all over the world and a scandal that changed everything, we always returned to Disney World.
```
``` In 1749, Emilie du Châtelet feared bearing a child at 42 would be the last thing she did. In her final year, she worked furiously on a magnum opus that would change the world.
```
``` “Plant collection” may not sound perilous, but while scaling boulders and dodging snakes, I learned just how much these intrepid explorers risk to help understand our world.
```
``` When it comes to preparing for the end of civilization, gun-loving red-staters aren't the only ones taking matters into their own hands.
```
``` My dad was one of the only people on Earth with a good-for-life, go-anywhere-you-choose pass from American Airlines. Then they took it away. This is the true story of having—and losing—a superpower.
```
``` In a country where wealth and divorce are increasingly common, older people are preparing for their leisurely retirements—by searching for spouses in a public park.
```
``` I don't know how I landed this job. But the most surprising part is that instead of helping my clients find love, they helped me get out of an abusive relationship.
```
``` In Pittsburgh, the tow truck business is notoriously cutthroat. This winter, two rivals arrived at the same wreck and the feud crossed a line.
```
``` Did Maryon Cooper Hewitt want to suppress “bad genes” or steal her child’s inheritance? Their battle over genetics and motherhood riveted the nation in 1936.
```
``` First he found God. Then he found death metal. But Father Robert Culat believes there’s no reason the two can’t co-exist.
```
``` How rediscovering the boy band I obsessed over when I was 12 —and connecting with other super-fans from all over the world—helped me navigate life as an adult.
```
``` As this once fringe cultural scene goes mainstream, women and gender-nonconforming artists like Ata Racks are challenging notions of who can take the stage.
```
``` I was only 8 when I began working as an undercover security guard at estate sales. Among the dusty trinkets and used shampoo bottles, I learned a lot about human nature.
```
``` Leeches were once a popular medical treatment for everything from headaches to hemorrhages. Now a subculture of true believers is reclaiming this ancient practice.
```
``` Their lavish costumes and group swims provide a community they could never find on land — so much so that they don’t identify as human.
```
``` I was devastated when I lost my dream job as a mortician. But I found a new sense of purpose guiding pet owners through the worst days of their lives.
```
``` How a brilliant scientist went from discovering a mother lode of treasure at the bottom of the sea to fleeing from authorities with suitcases full of cash.
```
``` As a scholarship student at a fancy private school, I gained entry to a world few Americans see: rich, privileged and black. I decided I wanted no part of it.
```
``` In the sport’s post-Depression heyday, one audacious grifter beat the odds with an elaborate scam: disguising fast horses to look like slow ones.
```
``` I thought a summer job at the Princess Academy would be a carefree escape. But I learned some hard lessons about real life while playing make-believe.
```
``` Beyond the beautiful beaches and glitzy galas, Oak Bluffs is a complicated community that elite old families, working-class locals and social-climbing summerers all claim as their own.
```
``` I had zero experience when I signed up for a week at sea on an ancient wooden vessel. I got enough to last a lifetime.
```
``` When priceless texts began disappearing from a seventh-century hilltop abbey, the police were mystified. They were even more befuddled when they finally caught the culprit.
```
``` Ghana’s capital is home to a booming economy, a thriving tech scene, and a growing number of professionals who’ve decided to stop chasing the American dream.
```
``` When Spanish authorities sentenced this provocative musician to prison for “glorifying terrorism,” his dedicated fans helped him make a daring escape across the border.
```
``` As a struggling grad student, I happened upon a lucrative side hustle with an elite team of card-counters—and found the community I'd been looking for.
```
``` These Syrian children survived attacks that left them burned beyond belief. One program thousands of miles from home is offering them life-changing treatment.
```
``` I thought penning steamy books about sex-crazed werewolves was the dumbest job ever. With a little subversion and a huge thesaurus, I learned to love it.
```