Well, 2023 happened

My last story of 2023 was published in the 200th issue of Mountain Gazette. My assignment was to look into WNDR Alpine, a startup making skis from microalgae-based bioplastic. What I ultimately turned in was the story of WNDR woven with an essay about time, calamity, and hopeful innovation. (I also took the photos, which was a first.)

I’m proud of the piece. I don’t have a science background, so it took a lot of reporting for me to understand bioplastics — from how they are made to their various pros and cons. And it took a lot of mental toiling with the facts around climate change and the hopes technology companies claim for alleviating it. I was fortunate to get unfettered access to WNDR Alpine for an up-close look at the work its engineers are doing. There could be a big future for algal plastic if it can scale.

The full story is only in print, but I’ve posted a short excerpt on my website here.

Otherwise, I have a few exciting projects coming out in 2024, which I can’t wait to share. One is about [REDACTED] and another is [SUPER REDACTED]. I hope you’ll find them worth the wait.

One quick cringey request. Since Twitter/X has lately become a platform better fit for neo-Nazis than journalists, I’ve decided to move to Threads because self-promotion is apparently valuable in my line of work. If you’re on Threads, consider following me (@ari_schneider) so I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself over there.

So much great nonfiction was published in 2023 by writers who aren’t me. I keep a list of my favorite longform stories and wanted to share what made the cut this year. Some are funny, some are deeply troubling, all are excellent. Most of these are features that can be read in an hour or so, but I also added two standout books to the bottom of the list.

• Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison by Joe Garcia in The New Yorker

• Inside the Secretive World of Penile Enlargement by Ava Kofman in ProPublica and The New Yorker

• In the Glimmer by Rachel Yoder in Harper’s

• The Fake Poor Bride by Xochitl Gonzalez in The Atlantic

• I Really Didn’t Want to Go by Lauren Oyler in Harper’s

• Who the hell are 2girls1bottl3? by Nicolaia Rips in The Face

• They Saw the Horrific Aftermath of a Mass Shooting. Should We? by Jay Kirk in The New York Times Magazine

• The Gambler Who Beat Roulette by Kit Chellel in Bloomberg

• The Mercy Workers by Maurice Chammah in The Marshall Project

• Tim Scott’s girlfriend by Ben Terris in The Washington Post

• Ghosts on the Glacier by John Branch in The New York Times

• How Larry Gagosian Reshaped the Art World by Patrick Radden Keefe in The New Yorker

• Piecing Together My Father’s Murder by Eren Orbey in The New Yorker

• Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney? by Caity Weaver in The New York Times Magazine

• The Crimes Behind the Seafood You Eat by Ian Urbina in The New Yorker

• My Delirious Trip to the Heart of Swiftiedom by Taffy Brodesser-Akner in The New York Times Magazine

• Scoop Dreams by Reeves Wiedeman in Intelligencer

• I Never Called Her Momma by Jenisha Watts in The Atlantic

• The Race to Catch the Last Nazis by Tom Lamont in GQ

• The Night 17 Million Precious Military Records Went Up in Smoke by Megan Greenwell in Wired

• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

• Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State by Kerry Howley

That’s all for this newsletter. Thanks for following along for another year.