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American Girl Doll: Fiction by Mary Thorson
“What American Girl Doll do you have?” She asks me, with her hands behind her back and her chest stuck out. Her hair is washed and perfect. Her dress is expensive even though it’s only for play. I want that dress. I want to cut that hair. I have the one with no money and…
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Fire to Tend To
I started writing because I wanted to cut out the pain that had been festering in my chest and put it on the table where all could see it clearly. I had just moved off to college and had left home for the first time in my life. My mother was struggling with opioid addiction,…
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The Nitty Gritty Interview with Elaine Chiew
By Charlotte Hamrick The Light Between Us, published by Neem Tree Press,is a work of speculative fiction that explores Singapore’s turbulent past through a supernatural connection between Wang Tian Wei, a 1920’s photographer, and Charlie Sze-Toh, a 21st century archivist. The story intrigued me from the first page and took me on an adventure through…
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Ball
Creative Nonfiction by Zach Benak The first night of August I sat in the back of my mom’s Honda, heading home from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. The setting sun reflected onto Papillion’s muddy creek and white stadium lights warmed the surrounding soccer and baseball fields busy with late-season games. I opened my phone…
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A World Hidden in Plain Sight
A Review of Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers by BettyJoyce Nash Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder’s latest nonfiction book, Rough Sleepers, introduces readers to Boston’s homeless people through Dr. James O’Connell and his street team of medical professionals. Dr. Jim and his team make “house” calls. They travel in a supply-stocked van to parks, underpasses,…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: A Short Ode to Joy
By Michaella Thornton Charlotte Brontë wrote in Jane Eyre, “I would always rather be happy than dignified.” There’s something particularly moving to me about this line spoken by the somber and thoughtful Jane, a character who wasn’t treated gently or kindly in most of her sad, constricted Victorian life. Even Jane knew “joy is not…
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Judgment Call
Fiction by Darrell Z. Grizzle “So old Homer Jackson’s boy Amos is a queer, huh?” I looked over at the man in the passenger seat of my car. He was wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, even though I was running the AC at full blast. “No,” I said, “Amos said he has…
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Nude in a Naked City
CREATIVE NONFICTION BY DENISE TOLAN It is 8:30 pm. The temperature is ninety-five degrees. Because it is early June, we locals still complain about the heat. Soon we will abandon clothing and hope and accept the drying earth and scalding sun as fact. Newcomers to San Antonio are often startled by our thick humidity and…
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Changing the Story of Rejection
Creative Nonfiction By Megan E. O’Laughlin Many years ago, I gave up on writing. I was only 25, floundering after years of travel post-college, and decided to get an MFA. After receiving a small pile of envelopes from various graduate schools, I quickly gave up. I shuffled the rejection letters into a little pile in…