Sabrina Rubin Erdely (pdf): She told everyone her boobs were real, which was a laugh: They were immobile and perfectly round, and looked airbrushed, even in person. She credited her violet eyes to Lithuanian genes, rather than the purple contact lenses she wore. And on this afternoon last November, sitting in a Philadelphia hair salon with a college textbook open on her lap, she told the stylist she was a University of Pennsylvania student named Morgan Greenhouse. The name was as fake as the hair now being glued onto her head.

“I love this,” Jocelyn Kirsch declared, fingering her new $2,200 auburn hair extensions. “Don’t you love it?”

Her boyfriend, Ed Anderton, looked on adoringly. “I love it,” he echoed. The two of them returned to their murmured conversation, discussing the $400 room they planned to rent at the W hotel, once Jocelyn finished taking her final exams. After that, they planned to spend winter break vacationing in Morocco.

Jocelyn and Ed made performance art out of their extravagance. They posted photos on Facebook of their constant travels: smooching under the Eiffel Tower, riding horses along Hawaiian beaches, sunning themselves on Caribbean sand. They lived in one of Philadelphia’s most expensive neighborhoods, Rittenhouse Square, where they dined in pricey restaurants and danced on tables in the trendiest bars. Friends figured Ed must have been pulling in a big salary as a financial analyst, which seemed plausible; he was a bright recent Penn grad who’d majored in economics.

Plus, Jocelyn held herself out as some kind of trust-fund baby, with a closet full of expensive clothes – for today’s hair appointment, tight True Religion jeans, a navy cashmere hoodie and white Juicy Couture flats – and bore the expectant, impatient manner of the rich.

(thanks, Dan)

Danielle Dreilinger: Ka’Nard Allen, 10, does not want to talk about what must be the longest and hardest 10th year of life in all New Orleans. He doesn’t want to talk about Mother’s Day, when he was grazed by a bullet at a second line parade in New Orleans’ 7th Ward, one of 19 people injured in a mass shooting.

He doesn’t want to talk about October, when his father, 38-year-old Bernard Washington, was fatally stabbed in eastern New Orleans by his stepmother after Washington allegedly choked and beat her. She has been charged with manslaughter.

And he really doesn’t want to talk about his 10th birthday party last May 29, when his 5-year-old cousin, Briana Allen, was fatally shot and a bullet hit Ka’Nard in the neck. The man accused of shooting Briana was arrested last month and, last week, was among 15 people indicted on gang racketeering charges in that incident and many others.

Standing on the Simon Bolivar Avenue neutral ground Monday evening, across from his grandmother’s house where Briana was killed, Ka’Nard just wants to ride his shiny black four-wheeler, a gift from his mom after his dad’s death.

He wants an adult to start peeling an orange for him because he can’t get it started himself. He wants to dunk an empty juice bottle into a garbage can and launch high, elegant roundhouse kicks at the pail. He wants to get on that black four-wheeler and drive it off the grass speckled with broken glass, watching for traffic, circling on Simon Bolivar — fast. He’ll even give you a ride on the back.

Rush-hour traffic raced by the skinny boy, dressed all in red with a Band-Aid on his right cheek. Maybe when one has endured two of the most shocking shootings in the city in less than a year, and come within a hair’s breadth of serious harm or even death each time, there are bigger worries than traffic.

Deadline is approaching on the Best American Narrative Newspaper Writing Contest. Don’t forget to submit your best work.

In an effort to encourage narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across America, the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference and The Dallas Morning News are launching a new writing contest this year. The Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest will award prizes to three long-form narrative nonfiction pieces previously published in daily U.S. newspapers or on the newspapers’ websites.

Newspaper reporters and editors may submit one to three narratives published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2012, including narratives that are part of a series.

The first-place winner will receive $5,000 and free registration to attend the 2013 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, which will be held July 19-21 (Friday-Sunday) at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas. The contest’s second-place winner will receive $2,000 and the third-place winner $1,000. The three winning narratives and three runners up will be published in print and e-book form in an anthology, “The Best American Newspaper Narratives.”

All submissions to the Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest must be postmarked and sent electronically in word and pdf format no later than June 1 (Saturday). The winners will be notified by e-mail on June 15 (Saturday). Editors and writers may submit a short cover letter with each entry, explaining the challenges of producing the story and readers’ reactions to it after it was published.

For more information about the contest, contact contest coordinator Tasha Tsiaperas at tsiaperas@gmail.com or 469-387-6985. For more information on the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, contact Jo Ann Ballantine at 940-565-4778 or maybornconferenceinfo@unt.edu.

House ad from the Jackson County Floridan, 1961, for all you kids who had a route back in the day. Be proud.

“You’re learning the importance of responsibility. You’re learning the value of money earned and money saved for the future.”

A Salute To America’s Newspaperboys (PDF)

Amy Wimmer Schwarb: LARGO — Two years ago, Bob and Connie Cain bought a two-bedroom, two-bath house in the suburbs. They added a porch swing and painted it a pleasing shade of green, with cream trim.

They are retired government employees from Ohio who love God and Harleys. The house is a three-minute drive from the beach. The couple and the house made a perfect pair.

The neighborhood seemed nice enough. Two doors down, Don and Claire Yoder had lived in their home for 30 years and seemed to get along with everyone. Across the street, Pat Ross was in her 70s and recuperating from cancer, yet still mowed her own lawn and trimmed her own trees. Next door, a renter named Michael Glick maintained an immaculate lawn; his flower beds brimmed with voluptuous tropical plants.

Shortly after moving in, Bob Cain saw Glick walking down the street. “Hi,” he called out, stepping to the end of his driveway. “My name’s Bob.”

John Archibald (thanks, Sara): ike Hubbard can take a flying leap off a Montgomery County bridge, and belly flop right there on the Alabama River.

Ker-splash.

Joe Reed can swan dive after him, holding hands with Rep. John Rogers. Sen. Scott Beason can take his gun bills and stick ‘em up his own exhaust pipe, and the governor himself, Dr. Doctor Robert Bentley, can choke on his own tongue depressor.

Because they just don’t matter.

Republicans and Democrats? The endless debate over Common Core, the NRA, the AEA, and the blah, blah, blah?

Radiolab dedicates an entire episode to Kelley Benham’s birth story. Listen.

Roy Peter Clark studies what made Eric Moskowitz’ Boston Globe story work. Look and learn.

Konrad Marshall: My week at the wheel begins in darkness, at 3.50am on a Monday on an industrial side street in Richmond, out the front of a small taxi depot opposite a panel shop and a dumpling factory.

I’m a little nervous about my first shift. Such apprehension is not unexpected. The taxi company I work for provides a handout designed to walk virgin cabbies through their lonely beginnings – a leaflet entitled: It’s my first shift! What do I do?

I should know exactly what to do. I recently finished 12 days of intensive ”taxi school” training in an old shopfront office in Clifton Hill. I know all the rules and statutes that govern cabbies. (Did you know it’s a $153 fine for a driver to be out of uniform?) I am familiar with the on-board MT-Data computer system and EFTPOS terminal. I’ve passed every road test and written assessment, and studied the street directory as a medical intern might study Gray’s Anatomy. I am now a master of the Melway – a qualified, registered metropolitan taxi driver.

Matthew Teague: TUPELO, Miss. — Federal agents of all sorts invaded northeast Mississippi several days ago, on a mission: Find the man who sent a poison-laced letter to the president. But the United States government quickly found itself entangled, once again, in a misunderstood land dominated by squabbling tribes and petty vengeances.

Agents first arrested an Elvis impersonator, released him, then on Saturday arrested his nemesis, a karate instructor. Gradually investigators concluded that what they had descended upon was probably less about the president — or the U.S. senator and retired state judge who also received letters — than a serious case of indigenous bickering.

That shocks no one here. “Tupelo is a kaleidoscope,” said sociologist Mark Franks, who grew up in nearby Booneville. There are true geniuses walking the streets of Tupelo, he said, and incredibly wealthy, generous people. But also, “every wall-eyed uncle and ‘yard cousin’ — just referencing the local pejorative — makes it into Tupelo, Miss. It creates a peculiar culture.”