Featured Archived
Seasons Episodes
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Announcement

After ten years of exploring humanity in all its diversity, SAPIENS has concluded its publishing chapter.

While the magazine has closed, its living archive endures—open to all and preserving the many ideas, voices, and discoveries that deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.

A photograph features dark river water out of which grow tall trees that are sparse with leaves.
poem / Identities

The Woods Lament For Me

Jason Vasser-Elong
Poet-anthropologist Jason Vasser-Elong revitalizes stories of interwoven lineages of his African-descent ancestors and those who were Native American.
A picture features a sky with a large, slightly orange, billowing cloud at its center that morphs on its left side to look like the side profile of dark-skinned woman’s face. To the left of her is a bright-blue sky with clouds.
essay / Reflections

Indigenizing What It Means to be Human

Margaret Noodin, Christine Weeber, and Jason Vasser-Elong
SAPIENS offers a curated collection of poems and stories that center Indigenous values, worldviews, and insights, creatively reimagining anthropology and the human experience.
A photograph features numerous light-purple ribbons tied into bows across the surface of a large, green wire fence.
poem / Reflections

Purple in Cycles

Jason Vasser-Elong
A poet-anthropologist speaks to the labyrinthine experiences of domestic violence—the entrapment, the hope for freedom.
A bouquet of red roses rests on top of a wooden coffin in a church under a stained-glass window.
poem / Reflections

We All Love Roses

Jason Vasser-Elong
SAPIENS Poet-in-Residence Jason Vasser-Elong reflects on horrific cycles of violence—and highlights injustices that are often papered over.
A person with many small, long, black braids tied up and flowing down their back looks out onto the water.
poem / Kinship

Maize and Okra

Jason Vasser-Elong
A poet-anthropologist recollects when Muscogee (Creek) people offered his formerly enslaved ancestors refuge, extending the bonds of kinship.
Anti-aircraft missiles leave white contrails in a blue sky above Kyiv, Ukraine.
poem / Reflections

Hard Water

Jason Vasser-Elong
A poet-anthropologist honors World Poetry Day with a piece that imagines alchemizing the suffering and devastation of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
A person wearing a blue shirt, a red neck scarf, a black mask, and a white cowboy hat stands in front of horses and points to something in the distance. He is next to another person with wavy black hair wearing a brown shirt with fringe.
poem / Reflections

“Cowboys and Indians”—When Dirt Rocks Are Dynamite

Jason Vasser-Elong
A poet-anthropologist remembers how a popular childhood game reinforced notions of othering and hate—and reflects on how child’s play can set the stage for how we behave as adults.
A young child in a blue and yellow winter jacket and red hat sits on the shoulders of an adult in a black jacket as they walk across a bridge next to cars.
poem / Kinship

Lessons We Learn

Jason Vasser-Elong
An anthropologist-poet of the African diaspora holds close family lessons on identity, freedom, and relationship in the midst of an anti-Black society.
The view is of rolling hills covered with yellow- and red-leafed trees seen through the front window of a car on the highway.
poem / Reflections

Window

Jason Vasser-Elong
A poet-anthropologist of the African diaspora gives voice to the power of collective memory and place.
A dilapidated dark, wooden barn stands in a dandelion field surrounded by grass and trees.
poem / Kinship

Elder

Jason Vasser-Elong
A poet-anthropologist of the African diaspora travels from a northern city to his ancestral home in the rural U.S. South—both as a memory and a belonging.