From the Magazine

Amber Dermont's debut novel, "The Starboard Sea," is set in a fictional world of beauty and privilege that she remembers clearly, but with a healthy dose of cynicism. The associate professor at Agnes Scott College grew up in a Victorian coastal village on Cape Cod. “When you grow up by the ocean, you have no idea how lucky you are,” she says. In her novel, teenager Jason Prosper is reeling from the suicide of his prep school sailing partner and first love, Cal, and trying to fit in at a new, lesser East Coast boarding school that is full of similarly rich, fallen kids. “We weren’t bad people,” Jason says, “but having failed that initial test of innocence and honor, we no longer felt burdened to be good.” He finds some comfort with a girl named Aidan and, alternately, with a smug band of annoying, perhaps dangerous classmates. It’s a coming-of-age story about learning to navigate by the right stars—or sometimes in the pitch black. The descriptive passages are lovely, whether Dermont is writing about the open sea or an ancient doorman: “In his navy wool uniform, all epaulets, gold tassels, and brass stars, his kind face glistening with sweat, Max looked like the commander of a sinking ship.” And the author is remarkably adept at writing in the voice of a teenage boy. “Not a challenge,” she says, laughing. “I have the mentality of a fourteen-year-old boy. No, I have a real love for teenagers. I really am fascinated by them, because they’re so much smarter than we are.”

Q: Why does the APD still use horses? Whenever I see a cop on a horse, I chuckle. How can a species that is more prey than predator fight big-city crime? “They can maneuver through crowds and push [the crowd] back by their sheer size,” says Allison Ashe, of the Atlanta Police Foundation. “They can also navig

What began in Georgia as a criminal offense for parents teaching their children at home has, over four decades, grown into one of the nation’s largest and most diverse homeschooling ecosystems. Fueled by lenient laws, pandemic disruptions, and new voucher programs, homeschooling in the state now spans forest schools, microschools, hybrids, and tight-knit communities redefining how—and where—children learn.

Child prodigies inspire an unsettling mix of awe, protectiveness, and peevishness in the adults around them. When young Jonathan Krohn delivered his barn-burning speech at last February’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh beamed paternally at his new mini-me, while Jon Stewart joked, “I’m not sure there’s a nurple purple enough.” “I thought Stewart’s routine was quite funny,” Krohn says. “But I declined his invitation to appear on one of his specials.” With the publication this month of his second manifesto, Defining Conservatism: The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back (Vanguard Press), Krohn is instead expected to make the rounds of tea party protests and join the punditocracy as the boy king of Fox News. His new book has the ambitious aim of helping readers “understand the ideas, principles, and values of Conservatism,” and it expands on the principles spelled out in his first book, Define Conservatism for Past, Present, and Future Generations, self-published in 2008. Homeschooled in Duluth, he is fourteen but looks younger, a downy moppet eerily channeling William F. Buckley. In his book-jacket photo, Krohn sports a navy blazer, a flag pin, and a defiant smirk. “I have an opinion on absolutely everything,” he says as we chat over hot cocoa at a suburban coffee shop. His mother, Marla, a drama teacher, watches sidelong like a sentry as he launches into the minutiae of tort reform with such rapid-fire, hyperarticulate vehemence that his pubescent voice cracks.

Some of this hatred, I think, is in response to this philosophical idea of lack, this idea that there are not enough rights, there’s not enough justice. There’s not enough love, not enough healthcare, not enough food. And if some other people get it, we’re not going to get it. But there is enough. There is plenty.

Over the years, Atlanta residents have made plenty of headlines with their exotic pets, often when said pets escape, generating hullabaloo and amusing—or terrorizing—the surrounding neighborhood. Here’s a look back through history at some of Atlanta’s most memorable pets and the chaos they’ve caused.

Kristina Lewis, a medical researcher with Kaiser Permanente of Georgia, snagged one of the inaugural awards from the New York Academy of Sciences’ Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science.

Lynn Cullen Smyrna’s Lynn Cullen, a successful writer of books for young readers, makes a stunning leap into historical fiction for adults with The Cr

On Second Thought host Celeste Headlee came to Atlanta with many questions. Perhaps most poignant: “How do you live in what’s basically the black capital of America . . . and yet just a few miles outside of town you see Confederate flags flying everywhere?”

What’s the latest BeltLine news? Will this thing ever happen? The ballyhooed BeltLine is supposed to create or involve 1,300 acres of parks, thirty-three miles of trails, twenty-two miles of transit, 30,000 new jobs, 1,100 acres of environmental cleanup, affordable hous