Reckon Review

Category: Wind & Root

  • MUSINGS FROM NATURE: Finding Our Voice

    By Susan Schirl Smith Decades ago, I returned home from an evening out dancing at a student union pub. The door to my college dorm room was slightly ajar, unusual noises coming from inside. I expected to see my roommate there as I entered. But it was empty. Standing in the middle of the room,…

  • PARENTAL RECKONINGS: Uncooked Writing and Parenting

    By Amy Barnes A woman in a gorgeous fall suit once handed me a package of uncooked hot dogs, in an elementary school hallway. Like we were spies exchanging slimy secrets. After hugging her kid, she ran out the side exit door, high heels clacking. There’s a parent discourse raging about room moms and parties.…

  • ADVERSITY: Art as Resistance in the Misinformation Age

    By BARLOW ADAMS “During the Vietnam War… every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.”—Kurt Vonnegut It’s a…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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,…

  • Parental Reckonings: The Ephemera Nest

    By Amy Barnes “things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time” There’s something poetic to my writer self in the idea of ephemera. Fragile. Temporary. Parenting in a nutshell. A short time to enjoy kids, as kids. A short time of them existing in your house until they drift away…