The Most Liberating Stories You Can't Miss This Week

When most Americans think of truckers, they imagine big, burly men — not Melissa Rojas. The Michigan-based mom is one of less than 6% of long-haul drivers who are women. Though weeks on the road can sometimes bring more frustration than freedom, she wouldn’t have it any other way. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah travels to James Baldwin's home in France to examine the impact of a writer whose legacy cannot be erased. "Baldwin left the States for the primary reason that all emigrants do — because anywhere seems better than home." Read it at BuzzFeed.

In the 1980s, it seemed that there was nothing Olympian Debi Thomas couldn't do. Now, after failed careers as both an athlete and a physician, Thomas tells Terrence McCoy what she would — or wouldn't — have done differently. “I don’t want to be normal. Normal is not quite right. Normal is not excelling.” Read it at The Washington Post.

Between 1999 and 2001, John Hofsess facilitated eight assisted suicides. This month, he told his story as as he prepared to end one more life — his own. "Someday, doctors will offer assisted death services much more sophisticated than anything I created." Read it at Toronto Life.

Every year, female veterans strap on ball gowns and combat boots to compete in Ms. Veteran America — a pageant for women who’ve served. The battle for the crown includes a push-up contest, trivia, and talent shows, but, as Ema O'Connor finds, for many contestants, just being there is a victory in itself. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Max Chafkin and Sarah Frier attempt to crack the code to Snapchat's enormously popular millennial mystique. “The vast majority of people reading this article will have a Snapchat account within 36 months. Even if, as they’re reading this, they don’t believe [it].” Read it at Bloomberg Business.

Esther Wang explores her relationship to romance novels — worlds in which people are free to fall in love and have sex without worrying about racial representation. "There’s a certain kind of freedom in watching, reading, and experiencing lust, desire, pleasure — and not seeing myself in any of it, or the male gaze that turns and trains itself on me." Read it at BuzzFeed.