Rachel Z. Arndt

Rachel Z. Arndt is the author of the essay collection Beyond Measure, published by Sarabande in 2018. She received MFAs in nonfiction and poetry from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and nonfiction editor of the Iowa Review. Her writing appears in Popular Mechanics, Quartz, Pank, Fast Company, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago.*

Nonfiction – Issue 25

Close-up image of lines and numbers used for measurement

Wind

When lightning hits water, the electricity spreads outward across the surface. The mast of our boat was a problem much the way a lone tree is: with its tendrils of positive charge, it called to the polarized clouds, literally reaching…