Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Sebastopol

Editor @longreads. @automattic since 2012. Californian since 1979. Junglist for life. Not checking Twitter anymore. Drafts/pitches: [email protected].

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Articles

The Unabomber’s Brother Turned Him In. Then Spent 27 Years Trying to Win Him Back.

6 days ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

In a series of recent interviews with The New York Times, David Kaczynski—the younger brother of Ted Kaczynski—reflects on the letters he sent to his brother in prison over nearly three decades. “The letters range from the prosaic to the profound: recollections of childhood softball games, news about David’s retirement, updates on their aging mother’s declining health,” writes Serge F. Kovaleski.
‘He’s Trying to Colonize This Community’: Inside Elon Musk’s Plan to Take Over This Texas Town

1 week ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

For Politico, Will McCarthy reports from the rural outskirts of unincorporated Boca Chica Village, a small South Texas community where Elon Musk is attempting to build his own city: Starbase. McCarthy vividly captures the strangeness and uncertainty of the moment with sharp details—a road off the highway that reads Mars-a-Lago, a vandalized nine-foot tall bust of Musk bearing a pink bandage over a gashed cheek.
The King of X - Longreads

1 week ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

If you partied in Dallas in the 1980s, chances are you spent time at the Starck Club, the legendary hot spot where celebrities, Southern socialites, and queer folks converged under one roof to dance—and take a ton of MDMA. For Texas Monthly, Tom Foster tells the story of Robert Jenkins, a pioneering ecstasy manufacturer and distributor during the ’80s and ’90s, and paints a fascinating picture of Dallas’s pill-popping party scene.
Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much.

1 week ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Over the years, Nike has faced accusations of worker abuse—there’s even a dedicated Wikipedia page about its sweatshops—and has pledged to improve conditions in its overseas factories. But Rob Davis’s investigation into one Cambodian factory paints a different picture.
When the World Connected on Skype

1 week ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Today, May 5, 2025, the world bids farewell to Skype, the video-calling service that connected people for more than two decades. “For those of a certain generation,” write Isra Fejzullaj, Rina Chandran, and Michael Zelenko, “Skype changed everything.” For many around the globe, it was the go-to way to stay in touch—free of charge—with loved ones overseas. It also served as a digital bridge between countries such as Estonia and the wider world, and became an essential tool for running businesses.
Doors Closing - Longreads

1 week ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

The L, Chicago’s rapid transit system, has been more than a means of transportation for the city’s residents. “There is no Chicago without the L,” writes Tal Rosenberg. “It’s part of the fabric of our civic identity.” But even before the pandemic, ridership has been way down. Riders face unsafe and unsanitary conditions, along with abysmal wait times (or trains that never arrive).
Reading Behind Bars, and Beyond Barriers

1 week ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

The 2016 US presidential election pushed Jackie Snow to action: She decided to volunteer for DC Books to Prisons, a nonprofit that sends free books to incarcerated people across the country. For The Los Angeles Review of Books, Snow describes her own literary journey doing this work, and how inmates’ letters opened her up to genres, like romance, that she had previously dismissed. Their correspondence also helped her see that for many people, reading is simply about pleasure and entertainment.
The Sex Lives Of Common Vegetables

2 weeks ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

“The way most people in Euro-American culture think of sex and gender is one perspective, the view from one vista. It is not the only one,” writes anthropologist Leah Zani. In this thoughtful essay for Noēma, Zani discusses the unruly nature of plants and the sexual diversity of vegetables and fruits. “This is a very different reality from the strict monogamy, male heredity and heterosexual gender binary in the tale of Adam and Eve,” they write.
Losing My Dad in Installments

2 weeks ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Mariana Serapicos’ father died from ALS when she was young. For Electric Literature, Serapicos describes a childhood growing up in Brazil and recounts when her dad got very sick. In this heartfelt piece, she honors her father and writes about memory, aging, and loss. He’d shrunk in those two years; the disease was overtaking him. And it was our job to remember how we used to be.
The Nurse in the NYC Subway

2 weeks ago | longreads.com | Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Ruby Cramer spotlights Lisa Singh, a psychiatric nurse who spends her nights patrolling New York City’s subway platforms in search of individuals showing signs of mental illness. As part of the city’s homeless-outreach effort, Singh assesses people on the spot and has the power to order involuntary removals (and hospitalizations for up to 72 hours).