Chelsea Rathburn on the Unexpected Beauty of the “Research Dead-End”

By Chelsea RathburnJuly 31, 2026

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Earlier this summer, our geriatric air conditioner stopped working, bringing an abrupt end to a few years of never-quite-cold-enough temperatures and bafflingly-high electric bills. Our HVAC guy broke the bad

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