Beaver Aplin built the quirky convenience chain into a Texas empire. Will his tactics translate outside the state?

This week, we’re sharing stories from Angella d’Avignon, Katie Englehart, Caitlin Dewey, Eric Benson, Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom.

Upon returning to India, a course in Urdu helps Sharanya Deepak embrace the rich and turbulent history of her native country.

Everyone laughs at how ridiculous makeover scenes are, but these swift internal metamorphoses aren’t much better.

Beat poet and City Lights publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns 100 on March 24. Here’s a reading list to celebrate the centenarian.

The term “slow jam” became widely popular when a song performed by Midnight Star debuted in 1983.

“The books from ‘Trainspotting’ onwards have been about deindustrialization … the cruel existential panic that we feel, in the sense that we don’t really know what we’re here for anymor…

Jason Diamond road trips from Jacksonville to Key West trying to get a handle on the state where much of his family has settled.

Summer Brennan talks about femininity and suffering, beauty and biology, and the startlingly dark turn she found herself taking when writing about women and power in her new book ‘High Heel.’

A BDSM relationship gone wrong helped Britni de la Cretaz find God.

Their mothers were secrets, right up until their deaths.

“The whiteboy said there was nothing left for me in Houston, he said that I didn’t have to punish myself, and he said my name, my actual name.”

Jennifer Baker considers the ways in which hair removal rituals, begun in her tween years, have helped her achieve body acceptance and connect with her own desire.

After discovering ultrarunning, a middle-aged father battling depression attempts his most daunting and dangerous race to date: 1,000 miles, unsupported, across Alaska in winter.

“Not a single person was killed on the day of the rioting. But the following month, May, would conclude with 41 homicides — the most the city had experienced in a month since the 1970s.”…

Dan Stoddard believes there is room in the NBA for a 42-year-old rookie.

Remaking itself from a little leftie newspaper to a powerhouse of internet journalism required experimentation, transparency, and embracing uncertainty.

Donald Cline justified his deception with choice bible verses, so that makes everything okay.

Discover your family history and start your family tree. Try free and access billions of genealogy records including Census, SSDI & Military records.

When Google Maps’ data renamed an African American neighborhood, it opened up residents to the looming forces of gentrification.

In the wake of having his writing career belittled, Jackson Bliss becomes an interpreter for a refugee and comes to see words, translations, and storytelling as important acts of resistance.

“The very foundations of my way of life are in white supremacy, and the list of microaggressions I have committed, and will no doubt continue to commit in spite of my “good intentions” for as…

Sorayya Khan recalls racist threats to her young sons after the 2001 attacks, and worries about them as young men living in ‘Trumpistan.’

Matthew Kassel brings us eight excellent reads from alt-weeklies across the United States.