Longreads

Frank, Lincoln, and Paul met over a chess board more than a decade ago. They didn’t share much in the way of circumstances, just a love of the game. After one of them disappeared, though, another of them checked in—and set in motion a chain of events that brought them closer together than any of them might have thought possible. John Leland has long specialized in telling the...

Art’s distance “from the prerogatives of the powerful,” writes Zadie Smith, “is precisely where its force of resistance lives.” Smith considers the value of making art during a time of atrocities, looking to E.M. Forster, Macbeth, and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World for guidance. Her essay is a searing case for the damages done to humanity when power tries...

Austin is home to a lively sandlot baseball scene. In this story for Fast Company, Max Ufberg takes us to two venues, The Long Time and The Wishing Well, and introduces us to Jack Sanders, the man who founded the home team, The Texas Playboys, and built these baseball fields, piece by piece. This is a story about art and design that serves communities, especially poo...

Katy Vine and Meher Yeda explore the Heartsills, a West Texas family whose lives revolve around competitive hot‑air ballooning. As they note, “Joe has spent a lifetime building a fierce bond with his family, and their shared dedication to ballooning—the determination, discipline, and devotion they bring to the sport—is part of what binds them so tightly.” Each member contribu...

Barry Meier | The Atavist Magazine | May 2026 | 1,747 words (6 minutes)

This is an excerpt from issue no. 176, “Yo...