This week’s top 5 long reads

What it’s like to be a child of war, a school shooting support group for principals, a 1981 feature on rodeo queens, being a woman in New York City in 1978, and not closing in over 50 years. A donut shop in San Francisco.

Zarrasht Haraimzai | Guardian | October 31, 2023 | 3,572 words

In recent weeks, horrifying statistics have accumulated in the Israel-Gaza war: the number of hostages, the number of refugees, the number of injured, the number of deaths, and the number of children. Yes, the number of people who were children. As Zarasht Haraimzai states in this extraordinary and harrowing work: guardian, “Children bear the brunt of war.” Haraimzai takes us from lofty statistics to bombardment day after day by writing about his personal experience of another war in another time with the same outcome. It pulls you into the raw reality of what you’re experiencing. She was 10 years old when the U.S.-funded Mujahideen shelled her hometown of Kabul. “Bedtime, school time, playtime, dinner time all disappeared,” she said when she was 10 years old. It’s the little things that make her story incredibly powerful. After the rockets stopped, her grandmother “made jars of honey and fed spoonfuls to us children, trying to wash the taste of fear from our mouths.”How Haraimzai “I couldn’t look at my sister and brother because I was ashamed that this was their childhood.” And, “The sound of a rocket hitting a solid object enters your body and stays there forever.” ” A sentence that pierces the soul. This essay reminds us of many conflicts that have occurred in the past. Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine, to name a few. It reminds us of the many children who suffered. Many people were killed. Many people will learn the same life lessons as Haraimzai. “There are no monsters in the dark, only adults who are scared enough to kill.” If you want to regain your faith in humanity, this is not the movie for you. If you want to understand the humanity beneath the bombshell, you can do it. —C.W.

Gloria Liu | Men’s Health | November 1, 2023 | 5,411 words

After reading Gloria Liu’s article about support groups for school principals who have experienced gun violence, I realized that most news stories about school shootings feature the victims, survivors, and shooters. Ta. I rarely read works that focus on school leaders left to solve problems. We expect such individuals to be strong and resilient enough to carry their communities through such traumatic events (and in some cases, even if they are responsible). (I hope that you will bear the burden) Mr. Liu details the establishment of the Principal Recovery Network (PRN) in 2019. This network has since grown to 21 members, including former and current Columbine principals, Marjory Stoneman Douglas (Parkland), and Sandy Hook. After a tragedy at the school, PRN reached out to principals to offer advice and let them know they were not alone. I don’t even know what I need right nowone of them says: But here’s my number — call me anytime.. The fact that this club needs to survive is heartbreaking. But it happens. Through this outlet, these people have given each other emotional support and much-needed space for self-care and healing. —CLR

E. Jean Carroll | outside magazine | April/May 1981 | 2,910 words

One of the best surprises this week was… outside We’re digging into that formidable archive to republish 42-year-old E. Jean Carroll’s feature on that year’s Miss Rodeo America competition in Oklahoma City. Although New She Journalism had been in existence for nearly 20 years when this piece was first published, Carroll’s vignette-first approach fits perfectly into this format. (within friends outside In an interview about her career, Officer Carroll said: (“There’s a lot of Joan Didion in that one.”) The pleasure here is more cumulative than linear. You’re there for Carol’s scene work and her sidelong glances as much as you are for yourself. You need to learn something about real competition, and this piece oozes both. These rodeo queens undergo “makeout sessions” and parade in front of the press in skimpy nightgowns, while also being expected to give witty speeches and demonstrate horsemanship. , caught between impossible expectations. It’s amazing enough that Carol captures all of this without a giant flashing neon sign. That she records it in vivid detail in her first published story makes clear that her trajectory was almost inevitable. It’s less than 3,000 words long, but like the best magazine articles, it sticks with you far beyond the time it takes to read it. —PR

Amy Margolis | Iowa Review | Spring 2023 | 3,478 words

I love how personal essays take me to times and places I’ve never been before. Amy Margolis does just that in 1978. iowa review. Enter, stage left, a young woman who left Kansas City to become a dancer and settle in New York City. Dressed in a leotard and Lee jeans, the naive but ambitious Margolis ends up living with her little-known sister, who aspires to be an actress. However, in this essay, women are not the stars of the show. It was stolen by Paul and Philip, the gay men in Amy’s life who befriended her and taught her, in her own words, “how to be a woman.” “Paul was long and thin and emaciated like a dying letter,” she writes. “That was the year my whole life started.” Paul and Philip feed her, give her fashion advice and teach her about sex, both literally and figuratively. (Fair warning, dear reader: We’re not in Kansas anymore.) Above all, these men are modeling what it means to love yourself. “I always feel insecure in New York, but with Paul and Philip, I never feel scared. Paul and Philip are men, especially Philip. They are both dignified figures, and they can be shy. I feel very at home,” Margolis wrote. With friends like this, there is certainly no place like home. —K.S.

Chris Collin | Alta Online | September 25, 2023 | 3,736 words

I never expected a feature on an iconic restaurant to begin in “a small village of potato farmers in the Arcadia region of Greece’s Peloponnese.” But then again, this, like many stories of the American Dream, starts somewhere else.for alta online, Chris Collin introduces owners George and Nina Jabris, but this profile focuses on Silver Crest Donut Shop. Silver Crest Donut Shop is a 24-hour diner that was purchased in 1970 and has been open constantly ever since, and the “new gal” has been in business for over 30 years working as a waitress. Time stands still in his silver crest, with Colin lovingly documenting the relics of the past that make up the diner’s interior. What’s a little harder to capture, and what Colin does best here, is highlighting the invisible. George, Nina, Silver He is the atmospheric “je ne sais quoi” who, along with Crest, is his fourth character in this piece. “As your Silver Crest ages, there are worse things you can do than grow older. Don’t struggle with it and fully accept it,” Colin wrote. “Once again, I find Silvercrest to be something of a reprieve. Outside the door, San Francisco teeters, democracy teeters, the ice sheets teeter, and I feel myself teetering.” . But there’s no room for nonsense here. You order the food, you eat the food.” In this piece, you may come for the food, but you stay for the feel. Probably. —K.S.

audience award

Here are our readers’ favorite pieces from last week.