Reckon Review

Category: Wind & Root

  • 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…

  • The Fractured Mirror: Taking Your Half with You

    By Edward Karshner During my 2022 summer fellowship at Berea College Special Collections and Archives, I nerded out over many variants of familiar folktales. I love the idea that stories and traditions continue to evolve, grow, change. One story, however, was new to me. It has haunted me ever since I read it. It’s a…

  • Healthy Habits: Not What You Might Think

    By VALERIE PERALTA I confess. On my journey to exercise consistently and eat what I should more often than not, I often focus more energy on exercise than nutrition. Yes, it’s easier for me to run five miles than it is for me to resist a double chocolate brownie smothered in hot fudge sauce and…

  • Country Craft: Look Up

    Remember the Big Picture in Revisions By Stuart Phillips About a hundred feet down a gentle slope from our house stands the remnants of a small orchard from the 1800s. When we moved in, all that remained were five apple trees, branches so tangled from years of neglect they were almost barren. I pruned them…