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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…
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Ladies First
Creative Nonfiction by Leighton Schreyer He. Tall. Mid-forties or so. Dressed in a slick navy suit, pink dress shirt, floral tie. Striped socks—Burberry or Balenciaga or Prada, something fancy—revealing themselves with each pump of the pedal. Briefcase strapped in the bike basket in lieu of the child he (almost certainly) doesn’t have. Can’t have, looking…
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In Search of Magic
By Jamie Etheridge I’m writing late into the afternoon when I see them. A fluffle of eastern cottontails scampering across the road. They move like raindrops on water. Plop. Bound. Leap. A wiffle of unreality. Midway, the mother rabbits pause. They rear up on hind legs. Freeze frame, except for twitching noses and ears alert.…