Category: Wind & Root

  • Buried Nitrogen – Dead Wood Falling: A Snow Moon Noir

    By Sandra K. Barnidge Our Leyland cypress died. All at once, it seemed, almost overnight. One week, the evergreen branches were soft, supple, and verdant — it had been our outdoor Christmas tree, and we’d decorated it with shiny colored balls and a pinecone topper. But last summer’s drought had weakened it, and a fungus…

  • The Pie Was a Final Draft: Homecoming

    By Michaella Thornton Last month, at age 45, I attended my first Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, and it was glorious. I sang karaoke two nights in a row with writers I love and admire (Salt-n-Pepa’s “None of Your Business” and Wilco’s “Heavy Metal Drummer”…

  • 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.…

  • Adversity: On Writing Yourself As the Reluctant Villain

    By Barlow Adams Invariably, my best stories are the ones that share some part of me I’d rather not, some aspect of me I wish didn’t exist at all. As a result, my “biggest” most dramatic essays are frequently the hardest for me to write. This leads to an infuriating dichotomy where I often tell…

  • The Fractured Mirror: Fishing for Metaphors

    By Edward Karshner Maybe it was the forty-eight days without sunshine in Northeast Ohio, but I woke up fitful that morning questioning those stories we tell ourselves about the act of love. That was just the intellectual puzzle I needed to pull myself out of my “bleak mid-winter.” When I was younger, my dad tried…

  • 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…

  • 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. …

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…