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I KNOW NOW WHY THEY CALL IT STILLBIRTH | Nonfiction by Lacey Rodriguez
I think I know now why they call it stillbirth. I always thought it was because of the nature of a child not alive… Still. Cold. Lifeless. But now I think it is because the room goes still. Time stops. More like, you exist outside of it. The entire universe is encapsulated in that little…
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ORANGE JUICE, 2000 | Nonfiction by Mary Thorson
We believe in Orange Juice. We have many beliefs, and orange juice is one of them. And plane crashes. On the morning of the day that Uncle Willie died, he came back from his car to the kitchen three times. The first was to tell his wife that he loved her. The second was because…
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SOMETIMES A BOY JUST HAS TO LIE | Nonfiction by J.R. Welch
Hayti, Missouri — 1979 The trailer was white with faded green trim, paint peeling from the metal siding still hot from the day’s sun. I sat in the back of the cop car, vinyl sticking to my legs. In the Delta, cops had a way of making everyone sweat. That night, it wasn’t just the…
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DUDE, WORST TITLE EVER | Nonfiction by Jim Roberts
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” That quote is attributed to W. Somerset Maugham, although no one seems to know for sure if he wrote it. Deciding which advice to accept and which to reject is, for me, the most difficult part of writing fiction. There’s…
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MOTHERING, 21ST CENTURY EDITION | Creative Nonfiction by Alina Zollfrank
Because I held them after; Because I felt them before they clawed their way into the dim of the delivery room; Because I channeled our dead when I lifted my firstborn to the heavens and said, Look, she’s here and cried tears of relief because the new life lived; Because I spilled over when baby…
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SEASONS | Nonfiction by Laurel Hightower
It’s mid-winter in Kentucky and the ground is frozen solid, the trees bare and gray. It’s twenty degrees outside, so for this rare holiday weekend we’re hunkered down and making use of the black marble fireplace, my pitbull curled up under multiple blankets, occasionally knocking my laptop out of her way or adding her input…
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H.O.M.E. | Creative Nonfiction by Mireya Gonzalez-Looby
The foundation was a raised structure, typical of 1920s California bungalows, designed to float just above the earth to protect it from creeping moisture. Decades of poor drainage had defeated that intention. The soil, parched and cracked in some places, swollen and waterlogged in others, had shifted beneath the house, pushing and pulling the foundation…
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Closing Time (inspired by a Semisonic song we aren’t quoting for copyright reasons)
By Stuart Phillips Editor’s note: It’s been 5 years and just over a week since I published the first story here at Reckon, “Country Roads” by Stuart Phillips, so it feels particularly fitting that Stuart is sharing his thoughts with us this week. Back then I wasn’t sure that anyone wanted to read stories about…
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ARTFUL ACADEMICS: The Bees’ Needs
By Brandy Renee McCann Have you closely watched bees working summer flowers? In my backyard, tiny, fragrant goldenrod flowers unfold in clusters along arched stems, swaying and bending amongst tall burgundy-tinged mugwort and a rainbow of zinnias. Pollinators—little bees, big bees, and butterflies of all kinds—blossom hop amongst the golden florets, sometimes pausing to nap,…