"Janine Latus is the most compelling speaker on sexual assault and relationship abuse I've ever heard."
Join the thousands who have been inspired to recognize relationship abuse, break free, intervene, and heal. To hire her to speak at your high school, university, military base or fund-raising event, send an email to janine@janinelatus.com.
Why I Write
People ask me why I write and I ask how can you not? How do you make sense of the world, hang it on a pegboard with outlines, turn it over in your hands or pin it to the wall to examine later, without the writing of words? Words are my tools and ...
Sleeping Around
As published in ASJA Magazine, the publication of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. A year and a half ago I sold my home and lived for 14 months as a nomad, housesitting all over the country to explore the question: If you can live ...
Gordon Campbell – An Ariel Love Letter
photography by MARK ATKINSON & GORDON CAMPBELL The plane bumps and bobbles across the clover, hurtling along the mowed runway and rising as if it is nothing. There is no fuselage, no windshield, only an aluminum frame with Dacron stretched ...
The Judas Fish: Leading Invasives to Slaughter
In Montana’s glacial lakes, biologists deploy an unusual weapon to defend native bull trout against an invader. It’s spring, but frost covers nearly half the boat ferrying Clint Muhlfeld and his crew across Quartz Lake, high in ...
The Maestro Takes His Bow
photography by KEITH LANPHER Bassoons run baritone scales as piccolos trill and timpani tune. Trumpets blare and violins slide from flat to true, the musicians intent as they twist pins and work valves, each oblivious to the cacophony. Maestro ...
Harvest Table Restaurant
photography by ADAM EWING Sam Eubanks unloads purple and white bulbs of kohlrabi in the kitchen, next to acorn and butternut squash, their greens and pinks glowing just like the pictures in the catalog. Amazing to see it go from picture to plate, ...
More Than A Survivor – Rosemary Trible
Photography by RICH-JOSEPH FACUN They left in paper scrubs; that was what upset Rosemary Trible, that in this moment of violation, when dignity had been ripped away, after stirrups and specula and having to relive the trauma for police officers ...
An Iron Will
HUNTLY, VIRGINIA – Nol Putnam forges wind from iron, his hammer metronomic at 2½ strikes a second, steel against iron against anvil. The angle of the peen and the force of his follow-through shape hot metal the way a rolling pin pushes ...
The American Windsor
On the Eastern Shore, the Lewins carve, bend and paint so folks can sit in comfort Kurt Lewin pulls the drawknife toward himself, and ...
Sowing The Seeds
Tom Gallivan is shin-deep in the salty water of the Little Machipongo Inlet, so close to the Atlantic that the tides flood and recede with the pull of the moon, flushing fresh algae and phytoplankton through his oyster beds and filling the animals’ ...
Keepers Of History
In 1749, when most Colonists were scrabbling for the most basic food and shelter, two of Yorktown’s finest sat with elegance and understatement to have their portraits made. William Nelson was a wealthy merchant; his wife, Elizabeth, a woman of ...
Edwards Ham
From the spark of an idea, the Edwards family has built a legacy of taste. SURRY – Sam Wallace Edwards III pulls open the doors and thick gray smoke smelling of hickory and ham rolls out like a fog. His father built this business, and his ...
Making It Real
The man who dismounts with a flourish wears a red wool coat and white linen breeches. His shoes hand-made by the shoemaker on site. He strides to his counterpart and bows. She stands stiffly straight in a starched white cap and fetching hat trimmed ...
Zushi
Kevin Chang’s yanagi slide-slices through the fish’s flesh, its blade gliding through geological layers of fat and muscle so alive they’re still swimming. The knife shepherds the sashimi to the side; then Chang lifts it with metal chopsticks to array ...
The Method In His Madness
Thirty-five people work at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. They spend all day surrounded by all things Dali. In the bathroom -- Dali. In their offices -- Dali. In the hallways -- Dali. Walking up the stairs, they come face to ...
Brave Hearts
More than a decade ago, my youngest sister, Amy, went through a divorce. It was a painful thing -- the first in the family -- and she was scared. "How will I live on what I earn?" she asked. "How will I manage everything that has to be done?" To me ...
Self Esteem: The Repair Kit
Janine Latus spent years looking for validation in all the wrong places--until the day she discovered it was hers to give all along. In high school I was voted 'biggest flirt.' (Look at me! Value me!) I justified it by saying I was being ...
The Friendship Game
The first year after I first moved to my block on the south edge of Columbia, Missouri, I only knew my neighbors well enough for a one-finger-off-the-steering-wheel wave as our minivans passed. Maybe we'd nod in the grocery store, or make some kind ...
For A Song
The brim of Emilio Nieto’s cowboy hat brushes my forehead as we bend our heads together and sing: Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. Closing our eyes, we reach for the harmony that belies the words. I got some money ’cause I just got ...
Blake Bailey – Precisely
Blake Bailey spends his days mucking around in the lives of atrabilious, sexually conflicted alcoholics, poster children for the adage that one must suffer for one’s art, and yet he himself is one of the most cheerful of men as he jumps off his bike ...
A River Of Chips
Mount Jackson, Virginia - Inside a beige cinderblock building half an hour from Harrisonburg up I-81, 15,000 pounds of potatoes a day thunder down a stainless steel chute and through a chamber where they’re tossed by an auger, knocking off farm ...
Hashi Food Truck
Ross Riddle ladles rice porridge as thick as grits from a stainless steel pot, steam billowing. He adds a dollop of butter, then a bit of Virginia breakfast sausage he has dressed up with cilantro and salt, plus sugar and chilies and vinegar, the ...
Destination Punta Cana
Among the many inviting Caribbean resorts, here's one that stands apart. The rock underfoot is calcified coral, the ferns prehistoric, barely changed from when this island was new some 40 million years ago. The air smells of salt and earth, ...
