This week, Susan Grey Blue writes about parting from her right-ring Christian fundamentalist lifestyle after discovering feminism. Read that and other essays from Racked, The New Yorker, The Toast, and others.
“I Was a Fundamentalist Christian Until I Discovered Feminist Writers” — BuzzFeed Life
For years, Susan Grey Blue was a devout, evangelical, right-ring Christian fundamentalist who'd been taught to fear and oppose feminists. That all changed in grad school, where she met other scholars and read books by Christine de Pizan and Audre Lorde. "Feminism gave me the perspective to see the world for what it is, and to locate my own authority in that world," she explains in an essay for BuzzFeed Life. Read it here.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
"The Ghosts in Our Machines" — New Yorker
Occasionally, to unwind after a long day of writing, Matthew J. X. Malady will browse through Google Maps Street View, revisiting places from his past. During one of his recent online expeditions, he decided to drop by a house he lived in as a teen, and that's when he saw his now-deceased mother. "The confluence of emotions, when I registered what I was looking at, was unlike anything I had ever experienced — something akin to the simultaneous rush of a million overlapping feelings," he explains in a piece for The New Yorker. "There was heartbreak and hurt, curiosity and wonder, and everything, seemingly, in between. Read his essay at The New Yorker.
Google Images / Via newyorker.com
"This Is a Story About Loss" — Racked
In Alabama, there's a store called Unclaimed Baggage Center, full of stuff people have left on planes and luggage gone missing. For Racked, Stephie Grob Plante visited the massive shop, perusing lost items and interviewing the store's employees and shoppers. The visit comes just months after the writer lost her lifelong best friend. As the title suggests, her essay is one on losing things and losing people — but also on finding God. Read it at Racked.
Photos by Cary Norton / Via racked.com
"Learning the Controls: How Nintendo Helped Me Live with Asperger’s Syndrome" — The Toast
During his early years in school, Cameron Laventure struggled to live with Asperger's syndrome. Isolated and unable to express his feelings or read social cues, Laventure found solace in Nintendo. "It would be my lantern in the dark, offering me the means to comprehend my existence and the will to try," he writes in an essay for The Toast. "I had been a boy without a role, trapped in a world I couldn’t understand. But a game gives you a role. A game gives you a world you’re meant to understand. In a game, it’s impossible not to belong." Read the entire piece at The Toast.
