Narratively is a media platform and production company that celebrates the diversity of humanity through authentic storytelling.

Narratively

The story of someone who didn't know when to stop.

Dr Jim Lee was celebrated for his work treating early HIV patients in the 1980s. Then, 40 years later, he was arrested by the FBI for committing healthcare fraud worth more than $7million.

Jeffrey Arlo Brown explores how a respected medical professional ended up leading a multi-million-dollar anti-ageing scheme and staring down decades in prison.

“So why would Lee, a seemingly fulfilled and beloved doctor who owned two houses, take the risk of selling a controlled prescription drug like Serostim on the side? Did the extra cash go toward all the houses, meals and trips? Or was he more of a true believer than an opportunist? Did he feel that Serostim would have health benefits for his patients? Or that the federal government had no business examining his practice, considering how abjectly it had failed gay men in the early 1980s? Or did he just do it because, like George Mallory and Mount Everest, the Serostim was there?”

Gary Furlong

The Hollywood HIV doctor who was secretly peddling eternal youth

Geordies vs American gangsters; who will win?

Joe and Tommy Duffy — a pair of self-proclaimed gangsters — were deported from the US after stints in the country’s toughest prisons. Then they hatched a plan to bring Bonnie-and-Clyde-style armed robbery across the pond. Paul Brown explores their disastrous attempt to emulate American-style crime in the Northeast of England.

The bank robbers who couldn’t shoot straight (or do anything right, really)

The permanent damage of “less-lethal weapons”.

As Black Lives Matter protests swept the US, the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters started to fly. This epidemic of “blinding by police” inspired an unlikely network of survivors. Wil Sands explores their stories.

Sean Crisden

The shot-in-the-eye squad

The heartbreaking realness of Jewish teenagers in the face of Nazis.

Anne Frank's diary is a best seller that has introduced the Holocaust to younger audiences around the world. But still, it only offered a glimpse into the lives of millions of other teenagers who died at the hand of the Nazis. One history writer is on a quest to create a voice for them.

Kristina Gaddy explores a collection of autobiographies written by Jewish youth in the 1930s, that celebrate the inspiring endurance of the teenage spirit — in the form of heart-bursting crushes, angsty soul-searching and secret sexcapades.

Sarah Naughton

These forgotten essays reveal the secrets and dreams of jewish teens as Hitler drew near

Is this the weirdest side hustle of all time?

In early 2010, journalist Vijai Maheshwari found himself stuck in Kyiv and in dire need of a more lucrative vocation as the media world transformed. Spurred on by living in the hustling paradise of the Ukrainian capital, he recalls his journey into wig hair dealing, revealing how he made a lucrative living brokering on the vanity of those willing to part big money for Russian virgin locks.

Michael Satow

My bizarre reign as New York’s King of “virgin Russian hair”

How her defiance was passed through generations.

In 1794 the people of Guadeloupe briefly tasted freedom. A woman named Solitude decided she would rather die than go back into chains — and this heroism was nearly lost to history. Mary Kay McBrayer explores how her legend survived through a surprising method.

Betsy Foldes Meiman

The pregnant woman who led a legendary slave rebellion

Will Ray re-connect with his Mother?

In the early 1980s, Peggy Hannity found herself stranded in single room occupancy in New York’s West Village. After a lifetime of bad choices, she found a family in the flophouse of criminals, LGBTQ runaways and anyone else who fell through the cracks in 1980s New York. In this deeply personal recollection, Ray W. Hayden reflects on the years he spent trying to connect with his free-spirited Mother, consumed by addiction.

Part II: One last chance

The chronicles of a runaway Mother.

In the early 1980s, Peggy Hannity found herself stranded in single room occupancy in New York’s West Village. After a lifetime of bad choices, she found a family in the flophouse of criminals, LGBTQ runaways and anyone else who fell through the cracks in 1980s New York. In this deeply personal recollection, Ray W. Hayden reflects on the years he spent trying to connect with his free-spirited Mother, consumed by addiction.

Part I: A single room occupancy

Can Peggy change her life before it consumes her?

In the early 1980s, Peggy Hannity found herself stranded in single room occupancy in New York’s West Village. After a lifetime of bad choices, she found a family in the flophouse of criminals, LGBTQ runaways and anyone else who fell through the cracks in 1980s New York. In this deeply personal recollection, Ray W. Hayden reflects on the years he spent trying to connect with his free-spirited Mother, consumed by addiction.

Part III: Getting out

A reptilian teenage fantasy.

In this reflection of adolescent naivety, R. W. Gollobin recalls how his obsession with snakes found him building a DIY lab, left him stranded hundreds of miles away from home and spurred on a get-rich-quick plan involving deadly venom.

The great cottonmouth-catching get-rich-quick scheme of 1956

Some heroes never stop fighting.

50 years after he helped liberate Dachau, Felix Sparks lost his grandson to gun violence. Here, David Kindy explores the story of a man in his mid-seventies who used his life experience as a veteran, prosecutor and judge to take on a new enemy: the National Rifle Association. His passionate fight for better gun control reminds us that it is still possible for one determined person to triumph over political giants. 

Karl Miller

The World War II hero who proved it’s possible to beat the NRA

A literary pioneer with a passion for intelligence.

In the 17th century, Aphra Ben was the first English woman in history to work as a professional writer, but this achievement was not the only fascinating thing about her. Julia Metreux explores the intriguing life of the boundary-pushing playwright, who used her life of espionage and incredible social awareness to break into the world of literature.

Marni Penning

The royal spy who became the feminist answer to Shakespeare

From pioneer to inmate.

When Keith Barry first heard Dane Donohue’s 1978 debut album on a podcast, he was transfixed by the nostalgic Yacht-Rock feel. Forty years on, he expected to find evidence of a long and prosperous career. Instead, there were only court records. Through prison letters and interviews, he explores the musician's dramatic life and discovers that his ambitions for stardom aren’t over yet.

The lost prince of yacht rock

You can’t write your own love story.

Read and written by the author; this piece is a deeply personal reflection on romance and the self. Melissa Johnson explores how getting lost in the wilderness whilst searching for her ex-boyfriend, provided her with closure over her past love but also with romantic expectation itself.

Melissa Johnson

How I wrote myself into a real-life comedy — that turned into a survivalist thriller

The couple who lived a life of Jay Gatsby proportions.

A penniless dancer and his charming wife arrived in Manhattan in 1911 with new identities that helped them infiltrate the upper class of Manhattan and live a life of fame and luxury — until their past caught up with them. Lauren Harkawik tells us the captivating criminal saga of Anthony Macaluso and Antoinette De Lilas.

The audacious tabloid couple who scammed their way into New York’s high society

Superstition surrounds the Joelma Building.

Locations surrounding it are filled to capacity, but a small piece of private property in a prime location in São Paulo is today only partially occupied. It’s the site of one of the deadliest skyscraper disasters in history, was once the residence of a murderous professor, and many locals believe it has been cursed for centuries. Is it a supernatural place or the result of a desperate search for meaning in the aftermath of tragedy? Ana Franco explores the plot's sinister history.

The killer doctor, the swirling fire, and the world’s most haunted building

Should he have been in court in the first place?

Dominic Ongwen was an A-grade student until he was kidnapped by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army at the age of nine. He spent 27 years rising through the ranks of the guerilla movement, before defecting. He later became the first former child abductee to be tried in the International Criminal Court. Johannes Boehme considers the way we judge a person's culpability when their formative years have been compromised by war? 

The extraordinary trial of the child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

He became the first Black player in major league sports — a year before Jackie Robinson.

Kenny Washington's life is certainly one story to listen to, and yet even his own kids never fully knew it. Born in LA in 1918, Washington went on to play football for UCLA, eventually making it to the NFL with the Rams, who had just moved from Cleveland to the West Coast in 1946 — an unprecedented achievement for a black sportsman at the time. Pushing past brutal racism through most of his life, Washington's inspiring career has been somewhat shadowed in the history books. In this piece for Narratively, Geoff Graser tells us more about him.

"In 1939, Kenny Washington was the college football star, leading the NCAA in total yardage and winning the Douglas Fairbanks Trophy as most outstanding player. Still, NFL teams refused him. And although he eventually became the first Black player to go pro in any of America’s big four sports post–World War II, he’s the only player among those who broke the color barrier in these major league sports who has not been inducted into his sport’s Hall of Fame. A shameful era of football still hides in a whitewashed history inflated with more than its share of Lambeau and Lombardi legends, rendering an early civil rights hero a real-life Invisible Man."

Mark Deakins

How Kenny Washington broke the NFL’s color barrier... and why you’ve never heard of him

This way of dealing with injust employers has taken off in Italy — can it take over the world?

Fed up with low wages and abuse, these outraged employees are naming and shaming 'shitty owners' in splashy protests complete with megaphones and bags of poop. But have they gone too far? Alessio Perrone explores their entrancing case in Narratively.

"On January 31, 2019, Davide woke up late in the tiny apartment he shared on the outskirts of Bologna, where he slept in the living room and lived with a housemate who never cleaned. He picked up the grey bike he used for deliveries and cycled 30 minutes along the main road leading into town. He stopped at a small store to buy a handful of white cardboard masks for €1 each, then cycled to a spot around the corner from the bar. As the others arrived, they recapped the plan: who should hold the megaphone, who should place the stickers, who should talk. After the action, they would dash off via secondary roads, remaining together until they found a place without security cameras, where they could take off their masks and disperse. It was critical to remain focused, precise and fast — if the owner called the police, they should run for it."

The masked vigilantes coming for your horrible boss

"The city was the site of the largest man-made explosion before Hiroshima."

In 1917, a ship collision In Halifax, Canada ended in the biggest accidental blast the world has ever seen — and while the city’s male leaders dithered, an inspiring band of volunteer nurses leapt into action. Claire Horn tells their remarkable story in Narratively.

"As the ships attempted to pass one another, the Imo struck the Mont-Blanc, causing the fuel to spill and ignite. The Mont-Blanc’s crew fled in lifeboats bound for the city of Dartmouth across the water, shouting to anyone in earshot that an explosion was coming, while the freighter drifted ablaze toward the Halifax shore. 

After burning for long enough to attract crowds of sailors working on the docks and curious children delaying their arrival at school, the ship exploded. The blast’s shock wave briefly revealed the bottom of the harbour and shattered windows throughout the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth and the city of Truro, 60 miles away. An estimated 2,000 people were killed instantly, and another 9,000 were injured; 25,000 were left homeless, and many were trapped beneath the rubble of their homes or workplaces. The community of Richmond, closest to the blast, was decimated. Though fires burned across the city, all but one of the members of the crew responsible for Halifax’s lone fire truck had been killed while attempting to extinguish the Mont-Blanc."

The heroines of Halifax and the world’s greatest explosion

A lightning strike doesn't give you powers, but it does leave you scars "beyond the physical realm."

After the sudden and intense drama of getting hit by lightning, Shana Williams Turner suffered from devastating symptoms that wouldn’t go away. It seemed like no one could help — until she found out there were many others like her. In this fascinating story for Narratively, James Walker tells Turner's story, exploring how she found comradery in the most unexpected of places.

"When lightning hits a person, it sends 300 million volts of electricity across the body in three milliseconds. The current flows externally, disrupting or short-circuiting the body’s electrical systems, such as the one that controls the heart. Cardiac arrest is the most common cause of death from a lightning strike. Brain damage from blunt-force trauma caused by the shock wave is also common. The jolt can severely burn skin, and in some cases it etches an intricate web of scars on the body that resembles the form of a lightning bolt itself, known as Lichtenberg figures, which fade within days for reasons unknown. Most people survive because the lightning hits the ground nearby or passes through a taller object such as a tree, or, in Shana’s case, the transformer."

Simon Mattacks

The secret society of lightning strike survivors

It all started with a mysterious message, then reality itself seemed to crumble.

Utsa Chatterjee, a 19-year-old student was inundated with lewd messages and fake Facebook profiles pretending to be her — the most shocking part was the person behind it all. In Narratively, Amira Aleem tells Chatterjee's shocking experience with online harassment.

Her best friend was her secret stalker

How COVID brought new hardships to an already gruelling way of life.

In this extraordinary article for Narratively, journalist Thacher Schmid follows members of the NE 33rd Camp as they struggle to survive the year of the pandemic, and the community around them rapidly grows.

King Chaos, Queen Cricket and one long, strange year in a roadside homeless camp

He knew the loch, and its inhabitants, as well as anyone — and yet today, his name barely remembered.

A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water — and daringly set out to catch it — only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest. Paul Brown tells us in Narratively the extraordinary story of Alexander 'Sandy' Gray.

"Sandy Gray was fishing in the peat-black waters of Loch Ness when he discovered an unusual animal. It was a sleety Saturday in March 1932, and the animal was a large, elaborately colored bird with a glossy green head, a fan of coppery-red plumes, and a dark-metallic breast. Sandy spent much of his free time on the loch (the Scottish word for 'lake') and knew that this creature was a rare discovery. The bird was badly injured; it appeared to have been shot or trapped. Sandy, a bus driver from the tiny loch-side village of Foyers, attempted to save it. He took it home but could only keep it alive for a few days. After it died, Sandy took it to the nearby town of Inverness to have it identified."

Jonathan Booth

The obsessive life and mysterious death of the fisherman who discovered the Loch Ness Monster

He was Chicago's beloved Zookeeper, and the star one of the most unpredictable tales you will ever hear.

In this remarkable piece for Narratively, Tony Ho Tran tells us the story of how a cigar-chomping, bear-wrestling bricklayer became the unlikeliest celebrity-influencer of the early 20th century... and changed zookeeping forever.
"Always sporting an impressive mustache and a tiger-tooth watch fob, DeVry was well known throughout the city for his eccentricity and steadfast devotion to his animals. But now, any semblance of that caring man seemed to have disappeared. Instead, the officers and onlookers watched DeVry coil with fury, then pounce like a lion upon the hapless quarry who had dared encroach upon his home.

As the onlookers gawked and the police officers attempted to separate the two men, no one could have predicted that the scuffle would set off a course of actions that would ultimately lead to arrest, scandal, public uproar, and the controversial firing of the city’s beloved zookeeper. But with Cy DeVry, everything was dramatic."

Smokin’ Cy DeVry was the original Tiger King

The most epic murder case you will hear in a long time, featuring a Texan investigator with hooks for hands.

Jay J. Armes is a legendary and controversial private investigator with over six decades of experience chasing criminals. His firm, The Investigators, was associated with finding Marlon Brando's son when he went missing in 1972, a case that rocketed Armes into stardom. But his biggest and most surprising challenge came in 1991, when he was appointed to find Lynda Singshinsuk and the man who killed her, Donald Weber. In Narratively, Dylan Taylor-Lehman tells the wild story.

"Armes had blown his hands off playing with explosives when he was a kid, and his prostheses could apply pressure three times that of the human hand. He was adept at everything from answering phones to firing weapons with them, and these tools even gave him seemingly superhuman crime-fighting abilities, like punching through windows and reaching into flames unharmed, adding to the lore surrounding him.

During his six decades in the business, Armes had investigated kidnappings, murders and extortion schemes, and traveled all over the world in pursuit of his quarry, a modern iteration of the unorthodox lawmen dating back to El Paso’s early days as a rough-and-tumble frontier town. (Early “Hell Paso” was said to be so awash with cowboy violence that Wyatt Earp, the hero of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, quit his post after a few days because the city was too dangerous.)"


America’s most flamboyant private eye and the 8,000-mile manhunt

A woman suffering from depression found comfort in the most unlikely of places.

When Krista Diamond moved into a haunted building in a ritzy resort town and sank into a terrifying depression, she never dreamed the thing that would save her was going to be the woman who died in her apartment. Here, she shares her gripping story for Narratively.

Sharon Bott

Snowed in with a ghost

The fascinating story of an extremely unexpected friendship.

He was the star of a popular reality dating show. She was his feminist lesbian Personal Assistant. In Narratively, Joanna Greenberg reflects on her time spent sorting through the metaphoric and literal dirty laundry of the city’s most famous bachelor.

Andi Arndt

My secret life as a personal assistant to “America’s most eligible man”

A near-death experience on a trip to Barbados led to a completely new way of understanding life.

Ali Francis spent years practically glued to her computer. Then one heart-stopping encounter left her thankful to be alive — and made her realise she wanted to live much differently. Here, she relives that moment and the lessons she learned in this remarkable piece for Narratively.

How the world’s most venomous fish convinced me to stop working myself to death

Narratively on Curio: exploring the remarkable story of Seattle's Feminist Karate Union.

When the serial killer Ted Bundy terrorised the city in the 1970s, these women banded together to defend themselves. Now, decades later, they’re teaching a new generation to take control. In Narratively, Ivana Rihter recounts their origins and evolution through the years.