Writing Samples
With his truck dangling 70 feet above a roiling river and a storm whipping 50-mph winds, a trapped driver's only hope is a team of trained emergency rescuers—who are stuck in traffic.
The winds this April morning were giving Wayne Boone’s massive 2007 Freightliner tractor trailer a good lashing. A driver for Butler Paper Recycling in Suffolk, Virginia, Boone steered the empty 18-wheeler up a stretch of Interstate 64 in Chesapeake toward Virginia Beach, about 25 miles away, where he would pick up his first load of the day…
Homelessness is growing fast across Europe. It's time to commit to permanent housing for everyone.
The dilapidated apartment where Laura Docherty, now 45, lived with her three children in Glasgow, Scotland, barely kept out the wind and rain. “The drains had collapsed outside and the house was covered in mold,” says Laura.The landlord refused to make repairs, so in July 2016, local authorities deemed the building uninhabitable. Bad as it was, though, that apartment had been home. As she cleaned out the family’s belongings, and locked the door behind her, the reality hit her: they were homeless…
Amazing advances in bioengineering are changing the lives of millions.
In the blockbuster movie, Robocop, scientists reconstruct a police officer into a cyborg—part human, part “bionic”—after an attack leaves him terminally injured. Could it happen?
Although we haven’t begun producing super-humans, the concept of rebuilding grievously injured bodies to be better than before has moved from the science fiction shelf to one marked simply, science…
Autumn couldn't say exactly what she expected, but the 65-year old propeller plane wasn't it. As she boarded, she texted her boyfriend, "I'm totally going to die."
Miles above America’s northwest wilderness, Autumn Veatch, 16, watched through the window of the six-seater plane as it tracked the lonely highway snaking across the mountains. She’d been visiting her mom and stepdad in Kalispell, Montana, and had expected them to drive her home to Bellingham in Washington State. But at the last moment, her step-grandparents, Leland and Sharon Bowman, offered to fly her back, instead…
The fugitives had guns and were desperate to escape. Edith Silver had savvy and was determined to survive.
The steamy air hung thick over Florida’s Interstate 75. But in her new BMW convertible with the top down, Edith Silver, 59, barely noticed the heat. Carefree, the wind mussing her short blonde hair, she was about to go on vacation before starting a new career as a real-estate agent…
David Schelske's beloved dog Sandy stood, motionless, on the tiny ledge, just one slip away from the abyss below
The house in West Linn, just south of Portland, Oregon, was quiet late on Christmas morning last year. For David Schelske, 46, the celebrations were over. He’d just dropped his eight-year old twins, Tristan and Lawson, at their mother’s place. David, an outdoorsman and professional photographer, decided to focus his attention—and his camera—on Oregon’s natural beauty with Sandy, his three-year old Labrador retriever/Rhodesian ridgeback mix, by his side…
Obsessed, the huge man aimed the gun at the young woman's head and slowly pulled the trigger.
The breeze streaming through the open windows made Laura Kucera’s hair dance as she pulled up to her friend Sara Tello’s house. October 1, 1994, was a picture-perfect Saturday in the northeastern Nebraska town of Wakefield. While Sara’s baby brother and sister played in the front yard, the two young women sat in the sun, engrossed in small talk. Then Laura noticed a white pick-up coming down the street…
(This article was adapted into the Netflix movie Only Mine.)
If you're older, you are at risk from the major problem of over-prescribing
One Friday morning, as freelance photographer and writer, Jan Maly, 61, of Prague, Czech Republic, sat at his computer, his eyesight began to blur and then, “All of a sudden, I felt like swooning,” he said.
The next day, at almost the same time, it happened again…
The landslide had swallowed his neighborhood, and Chris Langton's family was in there.
All through last March, the tiny hamlet of Oso in Washington State, soaked in twice the usual rainfall. Winter and spring were always soggy in the verdant Stillaguamish River valley at the western edge of the Cascade Mountain ridge. But this time, the clouds outdid themselves.
So when the sun at last rose into a bright blue sky on Saturday, March 22, 2014, Loanna and Kris Langton’s three older kids happily ran outside to play with friends who’d been at their house on C-Post Road…
Jessica's bones might be fragile but her spirit was fighting-fit. And her body responded.
Jessica Bernstein’s parents lifted her from her wheelchair and hustled her into her mom’s deep blue Honda SUV for the trip to the hospital. Distraught, the elfin 15-year old begged them: “Don’t take me. Please. I don’t want to go.”
She’d had more surgeries than birthdays; spent more time wracked with pain, recovering from fractures and operations, than she’d spent just being a kid. She couldn’t do it any more. Yet, even as she pleaded to be left alone, she knew she had no choice…
For The Love Of Lilly: The soft-eyed pit bull tugged at his heart—and set off a life-changing chain of events.
David Lanteigne never intended to adopt another pet when he visited Boston’s Animal Rescue League in March 2009. His golden retriever Penny was as much as he could manage in his cozy East Boston apartment. But he figured he could still volunteer to walk the shelter dogs and make them feel cared for.
Touring the facility, the then 25-year old police officer spied a sweet brown 5-year old pit bull named Lilly in a kennel at the back, and knelt down to say hi. “She had the prettiest eyes,” he recalls. As he reached in to pet her, she pushed her neck up to the grate. He noticed some scars on her head—had she been abused? She so craved the little bit of warmth and affection he could offer through the cage door…
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