Study Hall Wrapped

As we wrap up this year, we’d like to take a moment to appreciate all the fantastic work that was published by the Study Hall community. Welcome to Study Hall Wrapped!

Ilana Masad, “Rediscovering a Radical Piece of Early Science Fiction,” Reactor Mag

“I’d like to share this Reactor piece about Out of the Void by Leslie F. Stone, which is a totally radical piece of SF from 1929. I discovered Stone’s novella in Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction edited by Lisa Yaszek and Patrick B. Sharp which I was reading while researching my new novel, Beings, and I went on to find out as much as I could about Stone, which wasn’t all that much–she left the SF scene after WWII, horrified by the atomic bomb and what science had wrought. It meant a lot to me to be able to write this piece and hopefully turn on some other readers to the amazing book!” 

Benjamin Swift, “ ‘If not fire, we’ll be killed by hunger’: villagers continue to feel fallout from Bolivia’s worst wildfires,” The Guardian

“This was my first article for The Guardian, and it was a challenging but rewarding reporting experience. I traveled to several communities in the Bolivian lowlands that had been affected by Bolivia’s 2024 wildfires, including one where residents could no longer live after the spring that fed their community dried up in the wake of fires. My goal was to explore the long term fallout of wildfires – on everything from health to nutrition to education – after the flames are extinguished, which has been undercovered in the news. This piece led to many more gigs with The Guardian this year.” 

Ashley Archambault, “Three Records That Won’t Require Song-Skipping During Thanksgiving Dinner,” I Have That on Vinyl

“I sometimes shy away from writing about things that seem too cool for me to be writing about, but the truth is, when we write about things we love, it usually comes out pretty great.”

Tyler Donuhue, “I Lost My Fiancé to His Life Coach,” The Cut

“I found Study Hall while I was actively searching for new publishing pathways at the start of 2025, and it became one of my primary tools for identifying editors, tracking where writers I admired were publishing, and understanding how different outlets framed personal narrative. This piece took months of reporting, interviews with former members of the group, and multiple discarded drafts before I found the emotional architecture that could hold both the story and its ethical complexity.

I’m proud of this story not just because it ran in a dream publication, but because it reshaped how I understand my own voice as a reporter and essayist. It taught me how to report from inside an experience without collapsing into it, and how to go slow and give truth time to breathe.”

Matthew King, “How the Wisconsin Dells Turned Nature Into the Ultimate Indoor Destination,” The Metropole 

“This was an inspiring project as it allowed me to step outside my usual magazine journalism and take a more scholarly deep-dive into a subject of interest. I was able to bring together historical threads around mass media, nature tourism, and transportation methods into a larger argument about metropolitan consumption. The rigor of an academic outlet was also good practice in refining my research practices, as I had to diligently note over 30 sources as well as curate and secure permissions for 10 supporting images from a variety of places, ranging from the Wisconsin Historical Society to Facebook community groups.”

Rachael Rifkin, “50 years ago, the women of Iceland took a day off—and inspired the world,” The National Geographic

“I’ve always been inspired by the power of collective action and wanted to write about the 50th anniversary of one of my favorite examples, the 1975 Women’s Strike in Iceland. I began pitching this article in May and finally sold it at the end of September to National Geographic, just as I was about to give up on it. The writing process went especially smoothly since I’d already done a lot of research on the history of the event by then.”

Kelsey Erin Shipman, “6:45 a.m. in San Miguel de Allende,” Off Assignment 

“I’m especially proud of this piece because it captures a side of San Miguel de Allende, a famously touristed, UNESCO World Heritage city, that most people never see. It’s the quiet, small, everyday world just outside the postcard center, made up of neighbors and families who come here seeking a different kind of life. Writing it was a joy. It meant sitting inside a fleeting, precious moment of early motherhood and noticing what this place has given me and my daughter. My writing has changed since becoming a mother, and pieces like this help me process that shift while also reminding me to see how profoundly she has changed me.

Thanks so much for considering it. And for the Study Hall listing that sparked the assignment in the first place!”

Jamie Cattanach, “Sweetness and light,” Psyche  

“While I was lucky to do a lot of publishing this year, a piece I’m super proud of (and an opportunity I learned about on Study Hall) is this one about eating disorder recovery and berry picking that I wrote for Psyche. It’s mostly personal essay adapted from existing material in my memoir manuscript, but the editorial process at Psyche taught me so much — their editors were so meticulous and dedicated, even when my main editor came down with shingles.”

Karen Wilfrid, “‘Les Misérables’ is 40 this year — and I’ve never loved it more,” Wbur 

“If you can believe it, I’ve seen Les Misérables fourteen times, most recently a performance of Les Misérables: School Edition this past summer. The young cast, which unexpectedly included a former student of mine, gave the forty-year-old musical new energy, and resonated with me personally in a way it never had before. I was honored to pay tribute to my favorite musical on its 40th anniversary, and my former student and his drama program were thrilled to be featured.”

Melissa Sinclair Barber, “Consider the Hermit Crab,” Slate

“My biggest freelance piece this year — originating from a pitch call in Study Hall! — was this deep dive on hermit crabs and the people who love them for Slate. It began as a pitch about one woman’s efforts to breed these crabs in captivity and became (thanks to editor Shannon Palus and the editorial team at Slate) a wide-ranging, in-depth piece that was selected as an editor’s pick by Longreads and Apple News+. I think it’s Slate‘s most-read/most shared piece of 2025 — I can try to confirm that if you’d like!’

Jeremy Glass, “The Freezing of the Future,” Slate 

“I was elated to get my first Slate byline this year and thoroughly enjoyed diving into the history of this flash-frozen mall treat and its inventor’s curious path into the world of fake meat.”

Ali Raz, “Mamdani Feelings,”  Mid Theory Collective 

“On the morning of the New York mayoral election this November, my essay about Zohran Mamdani’s speeches was published by Mid Theory Collective. The essay is about having big feelings about the Mamdani campaign, socialist hope, and what language has to do with all this. It came out of the simplicity of crying over Mamdani videos and realizing that all my friends were crying over Mamdani videos too. Mid Theory Collective is a new-ish “digital little magazine” for cultural criticism broadly construed; the editing I experienced there was hands-down the sharpest and most joyful I’ve ever known, which felt fitting for a piece about good things amid bad times.”

Charlotte E. Rosen, “The Radical Cringe of “The Pitt””, Los Angeles Review of Books

“As I jumped on the fast-escalating The Pitt bandwagon earlier this year, I was struck by how its cringiness hit very differently amid the early days of the Trump administration’s (still ongoing) fascist onslaught. Even just a few months prior, the show’s moralistic didacticism might have landed as corny and cloying. But the show offered a politically sharp and timely reminder of the true material stakes of the Trumpist Right’s assault on wokeness and DEI at just the moment when universities and other institutions were suddenly falling all over themselves to cede them ground. At the same time, it had become en vogue for some on the left to position DEI/wokeness as straightforwardly neoliberal and thus suspect, making them odd bedfellows with those on the Right. Writing the piece in many ways helped me work through this bewildering moment by giving me space to articulate the radical and foundationally anticapitalist politics of antiracism, feminism, and other forms of (so-called) identity politics–something that The Pitt does so well.”

Stephen Lurie, “How Sonic DNA Connects Generations of Music,” The Pudding 

“This project took a few years from start to finish — and more than a few turns and iterations of story and visual. It was my first time working on story with matching data visualization, first time working with multimedia components, and first time collaborating with others on a project of this sort. Working with the good folks at the The Pudding, I was able to take an accidental finding about the link architecture of a big dataset (at genius.com), create a new visual form to express it, and turn it all into a sonic story I could only accomplish with the help of many other talents. I think it’s a great final product and I hope more people get a chance to enjoy it this end-of-year.” 

Kathy Passero, “A Love Letter to Boogie Records, the Stuff of Rock and Roll Dreams,” i have that on vinyl 

“The piece is a love letter to Boogie Records, an iconic independent record store in my hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan, that thrived in the late 1970s, when vinyl was king and shops still sold paper tickets to rock concerts. I posted a link to the essay on my socials and was moved by how many fellow Kalamazooans past and present shared their own fond memories of Boogie. 

In an extra, unexpected “win,” industry business magazine Footwear Plus (Wainscot Media) picked up a shortened version of the piece as the first in a series called “Love Stores,” celebrating independent retailers that matter.  

I would never have known about the IHTOV opportunity if not for Study Hall. Many thanks for bringing it to subscribers’ attention.” 

Siobhan Neela-Stock, “The Missing Stories of South Asian Adoption,” The Juggernaut

“Reporting/Writing Process:

I leaned on The Juggernaut’s network for sourcing, my own adoption circles as a South Asian transracial adoptee), academic articles for research and researchers to interview. Some of them were South Asian adoptees so that helped add more of a human touch to the story. I wrote as I reported as sorting through all the interviews, research, and my own thoughts at the end would have been an unnecessarily overwhelming task.

Why I’m proud:

As a South Asian transracial adoptee, I fought through my own trauma, assumptions, and exhaustion to get this piece out. I’m immensely proud of the piece and I hope it’s helped other South Asian adoptees feel less alone and taught non-adoptees the intricacies and complexities of adoption.”

Andrea Javor, “A Snob’s Guide to High-Stakes Poker,” Town and Country 

“I did a reported feature for Town & Country called A Snob’s Guide to High-Stakes Poker. I think the game of poker is undervalued as a teacher of life skills that more people should practice: risk management, reading people, making a calculated decision even when reviewing incomplete and imperfect information. I also have a passion to help close the gender gap as women are severely underrepresented in this game.” 

Tyler McBrien, “Magic Bullets,” The Baffler 

“This year, I’m most proud of my essay “Magic Bullets,” published by The Baffler in August, which traces the unlikely journey of the hollow point bullet from war crime in one century to the round of choice for American police by the end of the next. It was one of those stories that I’ve had in my head for years, but never could quite get an editor to bite. In the end though, I was grateful for all of those rejections, because Zach Webb and everyone at The Baffler helped me publish the best version that it could be.”

Deborah Copperud, “Strib Publisher Steve Grove’s Résumé-Padding Memoir Strives for Midwest Relatability Through AI-Evoking Prose,” Racket

“I pitched this piece as a combination book review and book launch party recap. Because the author, Steve Grove, is a high profile media CEO in Minnesota, covering the party made sense. I was able to report on the event’s attendance and tone, as well as speculate on the author’s political ambitions. Ordinarily, if I read a bad book, I won’t review it. But in this case, I’m proud that I called out Grove’s sophomoric writing skills and his mismanagement of a legacy media brand for personal gain.”

Nanya Sudhir, “The Big AI Catfish” 

“Sharing my piece on writing in the age of LLMs that I think is a nice-to-read cautionary guide for everyone but especially writers on using AI to complete the process for them. It resonated with a lot of my readers and with the Fractal AI community I am part of in Geneva.” 

Elvia Wilk, “The Unbearable Lightness,” New York Review of Architecture 

“This great magazine gave me an unlimited word count to write about the deleterious effects of artificial lighting on urban space, human beings, and all other species. The essay includes reams of research about the history of lamps, surveillance, NYC mayoral policy, crime, and circadian rhythms. The best email I got in response to it was from a bird conservation expert, telling me about innovations in glass that prevent birds from pummeling into skyscrapers at night. And I’m constantly hearing from other people who can’t sleep because of the streetlights outside their apartments.” 

Michael Solender, “Tea, Towels, and a Secret Courtyard: Inside Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar,”  Matador Network 

“ [This article ]is a first-person look behind the curtain at what many find a disorienting destination. I wanted to demystify  the experience and show how personal connections can be made in strange circumstances and how slowing down when everything around you speeds up can yield a surprisingly positive outcome.”