The Annex

What The Great British Baking Show Taught Me About Living Through Death

An inside look at Berkeley’s Cafe Milano

How four friends used Star Wars technology to make their escape from Calaveras County

On being bad at basketball for 17 years

How the songwriter turns disorientation into irresistible, strangely comforting music

When did being an Instagram artist become this hard?

Memoirs of a movie theater usher

For those perennially eyeing the exit

On lullabies and saying goodbye

Savored memories of a Berkeley institution

On quitting, and not quitting, smoking

On female friendship and the fast-talking world of policy debate

A journey through love and nostalgia, from Alaska to Guangzhou

Inside and outside my eating disorder

How the world’s greatest (and nicest) poker player peddles the art of deception

Reflections on the pull of a Berkeley brewpub

Notes on heartbreak, indie-electronica, and climate catastrophe

Michelle Munson, in her element

An Ecologist’s Guide to Female Friendship

As I’ve done the past two years, I asked each student in my fall 2019 creative nonfiction workshop to try encapsulating their lives or…

Why one of Hollywood’s most elusive actors is also one of its most spellbinding