Author: reckonreview

  • Healthy Habits: Enjoy the Journey

    By Valerie Peralta The year I turned 41 I completed my first half marathon. I didn’t do it alone. A handful of women I knew from the church I was attending at the time had accomplished the feat previously, so they gathered a bunch of women who wanted to do the same but thought there…

  • Things to Consider & In the Event Of

    CREATIVE NONFICTION BY WENDY NEWBURY Home > Policy Manual > Volume 2 – Nonimmigrants > Part A – Nonimmigrant Polices and Procedures Things to Consider Creative NonFiction by Wendy Newbury Volume 2 – Non-Immigrants Part F – Students (F)                   Chapter 1 – History and Background Chapter 1    A.  The F non-immigrant visa is…

  • Country Craft: Hey, jealousy.

    By Stuart Phillips Many Southerners of my generation have learned that reverence for history is a double-edged sword. I cringe when I remember our field trip to Flowood, a “working plantation” where smiling white women taught us how to dip candles and card cotton with no mention of how the cotton was chopped and harvested. …

  • Soap ‘n Suds

    Fiction by Sheree Shatsky 1. Margaret wears a pink robe in the laundromat. A car in a rush shouting a too loud radio splattered her filthy on the street. She ran inside the Soap ’n Suds, stripped down quick and tossed her muddied dress into a washer. The manager hurried over with the robe someone…

  • The Pie Was a Final Draft: On Bourbon Pecan Pie & Rediscovering Love

    By Michaella Thornton Bourbon pecan pie is one of my love languages. A language I express maybe once a year at Thanksgiving, but last November I was recovering from walking pneumonia and traveling by train with my 6-year-old daughter to visit my mother, her grandmother. I was in no space to pack pecans, bourbon, dark…

  • Of Curry and Men

    Creative Nonfiction by Charmaine Arjoonlal Each country has its own interpretation of curry, the spicy vegetable and meat dish which originated in India. Curry has a strong odor which lingers long after the meal is finished. Memories that are brought on by smells are called scent memories. “Teach me to make your curry?” my son…

  • Artful Academics: The Contour Lines of an Idea

    By Brandy Renee McCann My partner observed me struggling through a tutorial on botanical drawing and asked, “Why draw when you can take a picture?”. I looked at the potted aloe plant in front of me and compared it to my drawing. There was a resemblance, but it is safe to say that sketching isn’t…

  • Disaster Ballad

    By Nicholas John-Francis Claro I’d been with Leslie Flynn for three years, a rail thin ICU nurse from Kansas, who had a delicate, avian-like beauty. She was religious, maybe a little too proud, a bit boring, and put ice cubes in glasses of red wine. Leslie worked the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift at…

  • Buried Nitrogen: Carving a Villain from an Old Oak Tree

    By Sandra Barnidge I happen to live in a historic neighborhood in Alabama known for charming Craftsman-style homes and soaring oak trees. When we moved into our house, the inspector said the canopy of three particularly majestic oaks above us would “cause problems” over time, but we waved off the warning, unconcerned, too in love…

  • Home

    Creative Nonfiction by Aarron Sholar The pole erected, the backboard and rim in place. The three of us children gather around, moving quickly as the cement threatens to set and solidify. We have little toothpicks, our dad watching over us as we slide the wood through the wet cement. We finally have our own basketball…