reader-essay

By Karen Hill Anton “Karen! Hey! How’re you doing?” “Fine, fine. And you? It’s been a long time.” “You’re telling me. It’s been about fifteen years. But I’ve heard all about you.” “Oh, really  —  what’ve you heard?” “That you married a millionaire, have seven

By Andrew Kolczynski  I’m standing there with a mic threaded up the back of my shirt and two cameras pointed at me while I can’t get through the outro of a fashion documentary we’re shooting. Tears keep welling up my eyes for a few reasons — one being

By Chelsea Butters Wooding For the first 24 years of my life, I wanted what I thought was the “American Dream” — a spouse, 2.5 kids, and a home with a white picket fence. At 24 years old, a six-year relationship I was in ended, and I started asking myself

By Stephen Cohen This essay has been edited from Stephen’s LinkedIn post. Younger folks call me “pops” when they see me in road races, in the weight room, or on a basketball court — and “sir” everywhere else. I appreciate getting noticed and not being invisible. I left 65 behind

By Emma Zaballos It can be hard to remember that not everything that happened to me as a child is normal or typical. For me, spinal fusion surgery was such a major part of my teenage years that I assume that everyone went through something like it — a huge medical

Improving mental health and learning in schools.

How the media is tearing us apart, and how we can fix it.

By Doug Stallard I have canoed and camped along the upper Guadalupe River in Texas, albeit not in several years nor ever in the rain. It is a beautiful area and the water is refreshing, particularly in the summer. The river is lined with many trees, which spread along the

By Amy Liu Longacre Have you ever forgotten something that was really not forgotten? Something that lingers in your heart, and although it is not a verbalized, conscious part of your everyday life — is still a part of you and you know deep inside? With the many moral and ethical

By Cameron Stout What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor [and] more unashamed conversation. — Glenn Close Alcoholism, anxiety, and major depression choke my family tree like a dark, twisting vine. My father, a celebrated English professor at UC Berkeley, fought alcohol and depression for decades. In 2008, he

It’s about real people — going beyond the rhetoric of the immigration debate.