reader-essay

By Meagan Fischer I was honored to be invited to write a reader essay for Tangle a number of months ago, but I’ve been stuck on it for months. It normally wouldn’t be ‘good writing’ to start by sharing that, but in this case my trouble finding my

By Anonymous A game of chess played in the open might appear to be a simple, quiet game, but most of the winning is actually done away from the board. Everything from training to recovery, sleeping, and travelling can affect a player’s performance. This holds regardless of whether the

By James Breen This year marks the 20th anniversary of my graduation from high school.  That still seems weird to me, but what I think is weirder is the growing apathy about attending high school reunions. I graduated from one of the big high schools in the Northwest suburbs of

By Rebecca Durfee I remember being so scared — terrified, really. The indoor pool was noisy. Inside the pool, wooden tables lined the sides. At one end of each table was a semicircular piece of wood designed to keep a person’s head above water. Kids lying on the tables were

By Beth Malow Reader, what might you suggest as an alternative term to bridge-building? Do you ever feel conflicted about doing the hard work of opening yourself up to hear different political viewpoints? Is it easier to be an activist than a bridge-     builder? Are you pulled to news

By Brian Gilette In March of 2003, as the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, a Gallup poll found that 72% of Americans supported military action. I was not among them. At the time, I wrote an essay called Bad War. I didn’t write it for publication. Instead,

A first-gen immigrant’s take on the hidden cost of staying strong

By Jay Edgar It happened to me — it’ll happen to you. Man, those were the days. I never thought I’d be the kinda guy to write something like that. As a gig drummer in the 2000s, I always thought that the day you first complained about “music these

By Erez Levin When did it become socially acceptable to call everyday people Nazis? There was a time, perhaps only 20 years ago, when if someone earnestly called a political opponent "Hitler," they wouldn’t have been scolded — they would have been laughed at. The response was usually