Unfortunately, none of the dogs and cats at the animal shelter feel quite right. Leo is searching for something special, maybe even magical. At a lively open-air market, Leo and his older brother, Rey, are drawn to a vendor selling fantastical, brightly colored creatures—combinations of different animals in dazzling hues. The brown-skinned shopkeeper explains that […]
Amie Teller has been stuck on the same Sept. 17th for two years: Waking up every morning to the same coffee shop that’s always out of blueberry bagels; witnessing the same argument between her friend David Lenski and their notoriously unpleasant neighbor, Savannah Harlow; surviving the same awkward “friend date” with her ex-girlfriend Ziya Mathur, […]
Joseph “Breeze” Bye, a wheelchair-bound former professional baseball player, is on the cusp of finding major success in his second, post-accident career: painting. Breeze paints portraits of great pitchers—players who are as good as he was, before he was the victim of a hit-and-run. As a major exhibition of his work in New York City […]
Gren Moritz is the newly elected Chief Minister for the Nations of Rivennia, and the first from Varcega. Varcegians believe in tradition; they eat farmed meat and practice arranged marriages (Gren’s wife, Lorelei, was carefully chosen by his grandparents). Gren’s main platform is “protecting humanity from the rise of ultrahumanism,” but his initial bill may […]
“There are so many family caregivers in the United States that if they were paid, their labor would be worth more than the amount spent on all other forms of professional long-term care combined,” writes Mauldin. Trained as a medical sociologist, she also fell in love with a woman whose leukemia returned, to which Mauldin […]
Rupert argues that while “authenticity is supposed to [be freeing], for some…it stands in the way of freedom.” Drawing on her background as a presidential campaign manager and adviser and her lived experience as a Black woman, Rupert reveals how authenticity actually operates as a barrier to both equality and inclusion. While running former San […]
In New York City, young Pok Morning is an excellent candidate for admission to any of the nation’s top medical schools, all run by the Shepherd Organization, all AI-centered, and known as “The Prestigious Twelve.” A drone delivers the message: admission denied. Initially, he blames his father for undermining his application. But Dr. Phelando Morning, […]
As Sampson reflects in a pardonable understatement, “Bad things have happened to the Cross family before.” So what’s left to suffer now that Sampson has rescued Cross from a near-fatal bullet wound? Glad you asked. When his son Damon’s academic advisor phones from Chapel Hill to report that nobody’s seen Damon for three days, Cross […]
Plants make rain, writes ecologist Gaudet, author of The Pharaoh’s Treasure: The Origin of Paper and the Rise of Western Civilization (2018). Forty percent or more of precipitation over land originates through evaporation from plants and trees. When vegetation is cleared, evaporation plummets, seasons come later, temperatures rise, and rainfall diminishes. Ten thousand years ago, […]
Frank Uwe Laysiepen (1943-2020), better known by the sobriquet Ulay, was a German-born photographer and artist who in 1976 perpetrated one of the most audacious and celebrated art thefts in modern history, albeit as an act of performance art. In this rather uneven account, a triptych of that event, principal author Charney attempts to place […]