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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…
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Parental Reckonings
See The Sections: A How-To Guide To Giving Birth By Amy Barnes I give birth to my first words when I’m in kindergarten, three letter words that rhyme about baby kittens and mittens. My teacher pushpins the wobbly words with their crayon illustrations to a bulletin board with other stories. My high school creative writing…
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A Parental Reckoning: Parenting and Writing in Liminal Spaces (and they are all liminal spaces)
By Amy Barnes Liminal:occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. My daughter and I buy ICEES and beef jerky in a Buc-ees at 2:00 AM. There’s electric energy in the nearly-empty store. It’s only a roadside stop on the…
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A Parental Reckoning: Cutting Cords
by Amy Cipolla Barnes Twelve wall lizards cut my son’s umbilical cord. I imagine they chew through it while emergency Duramorph in my soft spine closes my eyes and slash-opens my swollen belly. I listen as the lizards whisper parenting secrets while my pumpkin-colored son sleeps under grow lights and gets his heel cut every…
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Mother Road
A Flash Fiction Collaboration with Process Notes By Amy Cipolla Barnes and Sara Hills Sally Any second now, Dad will turn the car around and drive back to the Gemini Giant where we left Mom on the side of the road. He’ll race down the highway, not caring about speed limits or police, knowing the…
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Parental Reckonings: At the Intersection of Motherhood and Writing
by Amy Cipolla Barnes I live in a house of people that love science and math and Venn diagrams. They’re always telling me how this and this meet here. I’m always trying to find that small life intersection of parenting and writing. I’ve honestly struggled writing this column by the deadline because it is that…
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Parental Reckonings: Writing in the Silent and Loud Hours
by Amy Cipolla Barnes “Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night, must you write?” – Rainer Maria Rilke When I was a kid, I didn’t know who Rilke was. I didn’t like sleeping and used my silent hours for reading and scratching down story ideas on paper scraps. It may have been…
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Casual Savior
Fiction by Amy Barnes I crucify Ken with sewing pins. One goes into each of his curved hands and another to his perpetually-ready-for-shoes flat feet. The popsicle stick cross I made in Sunday School buckles under his weight. I jab harder until he’s fully impaled. “That’ll teach you to ignore my prayers.” I tell him.…