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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…
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Anti-Depression
CREATIVE NONFICTION BY ASHLEY ESPINOZA I don’t want to write about my depression. I don’t want to make sense of it. Follow it around a path, a spiral. I don’t want to find the source of it. I want to wallow. To sink deep into it. I want to let it engulf me. To take…
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Suing for Peace
By Russell W. Johnson When I’m not busy trying to be a writer, I make my living as a lawyer. I know, I know. How original? Another John Grisham wannabe. I admit it has become kind of a cliche given the number of attorneys turned author. Scott Turow, Richard North Patterson, Meg Gardiner, Theodora Goss,…
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When You Sell Mom’s Teeth
Creative Nonfiction By Arlaina Tibensky When you finally get the guts to find Mom’s stash of 14k dental gold and look to cashing it in, you’re broke. When you hold the bridge in your palm, it’s heavier than it looks and the gold is dark and in need of a polish. When you breathe deep…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: Lilacs
By Michaella Thornton Because I’m a plant-obsessed dork, five years ago I wrote an Instagram ode to a Miss Kim lilac bush in my backyard: [In 2016] this lilac bush was felled by a neighbor’s dead tree, which fell on our back porch, too. The tree ruined our fence, and, I thought, my beloved lilac…
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Once More to the Lake (with Teddy)
By Danny Cherry Jr. I used to be fucking petrified of dogs. Big dogs, little dogs; chunky and skinny dogs. Corgi or poodles; pit bulls, or those little round dogs with smushed faces. You know, the ones that sound like they’re gargling peanut butter when they breathe. It don’t matter. No matter how much someone promised…
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Black Limousine
Creative Nonfiction by Becs Tetley As I walked from my last class to the gym, I spotted the metal nose of the limousine peeking out from behind the high school entrance—the only space that fit its long, black frame. I picked up my pace, hoping you wouldn’t see me and no one would see you,…
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These Things Fall Into My Mind
By Ilyn Welch Adult coloring and maze books bore me. I forgot how to crochet. I don’t have a personal watercraft in my life, and never will at my age. Perhaps I’m a ho-hum individual. But five to seven days a week, I am fortunate enough to walk two dogs during the quietest time of…