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OUR BRIGHT FUTURE | Creative Nonfiction by Blue Guldal
“Ain’t Montana preedy?” Cowboy said, sweeping his arms across the orange-pink sunset. We’d met him in a bar late afternoon. The girls called him Cowboy because of his hat and swagger. The girls and I were new scientists with promising futures, attending a prestigious undergraduate conference in Missoula. We’d just met earlier that day in…
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MY THOUGHTS AS I SIT PROCRASTINATING IN THIS OFFICE CHAIR ON A FEBRUARY AFTERNOON | Creative Nonfiction by Laila Amado
Dolphins dying in the Black Sea because the sonars of warships mess with their brains. Only a small percentage of deceased cetaceans wash up on the shores. The majority sink to the seabed, their lungs filled with water. Warfare as ecocide. Biomimicry. Micro drones becoming pollinators. The strange and quiet sadness of the world in…
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NO TIME TO DIE | Creative Nonfiction by Brian Benson
I was walking into the latest James Bond movie, hands and arms full of popcorn and frozen Junior Mints and foamy beer, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I shuffled my snacks to my elbow pit, pulled out the phone and found a text from my aunt, asking if I’d talked to my mom.…
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MARKED | Creative Nonfiction by Summer Hammond
“Out of all the boys, Summer, he’s the one you set your heart on?” Sliding down her sunglasses, my mother eyed me in the rearview mirror as we left for Luke Michael’s graduation party, a blue paisley gift bag perched on my lap. What my mother was really saying was, listen kid, you don’t stand…
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Ghosts: Creative Nonfiction by Meredith McCarroll
Turning my rental car toward the lake, the road has been widened and the house where Amity grew up is nothing. A spot between roads. The gravel lot where I used to park is a condominium now, so I make my own spot in the grass. I prop my foot onto the tire to tighten…
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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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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…
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Ten Minutes of Pride
Creative Nonfiction by Alina Zollfrank Saturday, 11:03 am: We could frame this moment. It’s the best humanity has to offer. A loud procession, planned and jumbled, approaches from downtown. On the sidelines, acquaintances hug and hand each other multicolored flags and homemade buttons. Strangers nod amiably, raise optimistic thumbs, smile gently with their eyes. A…
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Sometimes when I’m driving I get a call
Creative Nonfiction by Pat Foran and I don’t pick up. Not when I’m driving. I don’t look at the phone. Not when I’m driving. If they want to reach me they’ll leave a message, I sometimes think. So I let it ring. I let the ring fall I let it fall down this ring it…