On sharing a genetic predisposition to alcoholism
Category: Essay
We’re here, we’re queer, we’re at the beach
What makes Hollywood Beach and others like it welcoming to LGBTQ+ Chicagoans?
‘Hello, woman of color’
On whiteness, journalism, and leading the most diverse staff in Reader history
Swords to plowshares
An interfaith demand for justice in Palestine and Israel
Silent senses
For some the long-haul COVID-19 loss of taste and smell is more than an inconvenience—it’s a loss of livelihood.
Tales from the polls
What a Reader contributor saw as a first-time election judge
Essays as group therapy
How are Black writers coping? We’re chanting, fact-checking history, and envisioning a tiny future.
Three walks in the woods
The Forest Preserves of Cook County, which cover 70,000 acres, are an inexhaustible source of social-distance-compliant space.
Covert
On being a mother, the apocalypse of the interior life, and sheltering in place on the other side of Lake Michigan.
David Reifman has left the building
As the Department of Planning and Development commissioner departs, megadevelopers lose one of their biggest cheerleaders.
Governor Pritzker, the MLA, and the wealth gap
Very different solutions to the same problem all come down to the size of the pockets involved.
What Ari Emanuel’s unabashed volatility in Hollywood says about Rahm Emanuel’s public-image problem in Chicago
In its portrayal of Ari’s celebrated dickishness, Powerhouse invites a comparison with the superagent’s hotheaded Chicago mayor brother.