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THE FRACTURED MIRROR: November Remembers
By EDWARD KARSHNER This was supposed to be a Halloween column about pumpkin spice, witches, and ghosts. Folklore teaches that life is unpredictable and we must learn to pivot when confronted by the unimaginable, like hurricanes in the mountains or a vile creature returning from the past “nursing a hard grievance” toward the drēam (Old…
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HEALTHY HABITS: Move With a Purpose
By Valerie Peralta On my first day of acting class, the instructor asked my classmates and me – a hodgepodge of millennials and Gen-Xers – “What is acting?” After nodding to responses such as “a portrayal” and “a group of characters bringing a story to life,” Gail answered her own question: “Acting is action.” I…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: The End
By Michaella Thornton A friend tells me it’s not uncommon for librarians to visit other libraries on their travels. I smile at the thought. Whenever I travel, I visit cemeteries. Dvořák’s tomb in Prague. Keats’ grave in Rome. Mother Jones’ monument in Mt. Olive, Illinois. Stonehenge. My profession isn’t one that necessitates an interest in…
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Country Craft: Sometimes they die. Sometimes they come back again.
By Stuart Phillips Two years ago, as the leaves on the sumacs began to blaze and my morning walks began calling for a sweatshirt, I dug up the dozen Chinese peonies from the shaded front of my house. They were easily ten years old, so it was a task, even with soft dirt full of…
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Artful Academics: About Time
By Brandy Renee McCann I found myself on the front porch of my mom’s house, watching her do laundry in a wringer washer circa 1993. We had rusty water from a bad well. So as not to stain our clothes, my mom caught rainwater in great big barrels and heated it on the stove top,…
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My Mother, My Father, My Pen
By Sacha Bissonnette I’m one of those writers who needs to nail down a title before moving forward with a piece. I know that there are many better writers out there who have left their masterpieces untitled until they’ve penned the last sentence. It’s a mental thing, a hang up thing, but without a title,…
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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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Artful Academics: Ghosted
By Brandy Renee McCann In 7th grade I was in love with a boy named “Jimmy.” I still remember the heat of our kiss in a deserted hallway during a high school basketball game. Given that I was 12 years old, he should have been my first kiss, but he was my 2nd or maybe…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: Geologic Time
By Michaella Thornton A long time ago I dated a man whose brother described him as “moving in geologic time.” As someone who had majored in anthropology and also studied geology, I was both baffled and amused by this description because humanity is but a blip in the more enduring measures of time. What a…