By Catherine Palmer You might think your personal essay is complete, but wait until you try this twist! I’m going to show (not tell) you how to deconstruct, reduce, remix, and shape your essay so that it feels like you’re writing a new one from […]
By Allison Landa You wanted it to be a miscarriage and so it was. It was just some blood. You’d seen worse. It was a little bit of cramping. Nothing you couldn’t handle. An interruption in an otherwise stultifying and ordinary day. Under most circumstances […]
By Erin Binney Swatches of sand, nuggets of gravel, and shreds of skin cling to my right forearm, held in place by fresh blood. This is what happens when you’re nearing the end of your run on the bike path, can barely lift your feet, […]
By Loree Griffin Burns haiku on spring snowthe neighborhood mice were outbefore me, scribbling spring loneliness—clutching one warm chicken eggin each cold hand direct from the cloudsor waylaid by a pin oaktwo types of spring rain the fancy brick houseis empty now; the tulipsdon’t seem […]
By Suzanne Strempek Shea Thirty years ago, I ate my final meal as a carnivore. Long after everyone else cut into their T-bones barbecued on my cousin Richie’s gas grill, I stared at mine, the last one for 365 days. That was my original plan: […]
By Casey Lane What one-night stands have to teach us The walk of shame is a sobering act. It’s a moment of pure clarity in which we, for those few steps, that short drive, that time in the shower, are awakened, by euphoria or contrast, […]
By Andy Castillo I enter a world of burnt rubber and bumping tires. Rolling luggage and passersby whiz around me, tumbling toward their destinations in a frenzied hurry. Announcements in Russian come rapid-fire over the loudspeakers, reverberating through the crowded St. Petersburg train terminal in […]
By Judy Bolton-Fasman The first time I had to socially distance, I was six years old with a severe case of strep throat. “Look at those pustules,” the doctor muttered as he gagged me with a tongue depressor. To this day, I cannot stand eating […]
By Suellen Meyers Zelda Diaz-Blitzstein sent me a text. I’m so sorry to have to tell you your Dad passed away last night. Manny was my biological father, but he wasn’t my dad. Zelda knew him much better than I did. She’d been married to […]
By Heidi Fettig Parton Nick Flynn is telling this group of writing conference attendees how the French use the term recit in place of memoir, but I can’t focus on what he’s saying. I can’t because, if you don’t know, Flynn is rather swoon worthy. […]