-
Fly and Fly
Creative Nonfiction by Miriam Gershow I am six and don’t know how to ride a bike. I won’t know how for seven more years. Children will call out names as they pass my mother holding onto the back of my banana seat, me wobbly and long-limbed, hunched over handlebars on the sidewalk in front of…
-
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…
-
The Pie Was a Final Draft: A House on Fire
By Michaella Thornton It’s a little after 8 p.m. and my cozy brick bungalow smells of my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. While we may not have much, I can always whip up a little bit of magic on a Friday night as my six-year-old daughter builds new worlds out of little plastic bricks…
-
Flexing My Creative Muscles: Training to Failure
By Melissa Llanes Brownlee I have been doing my yearly ukulele challenge for the month of September, where I am playing ten Elvis songs, some new to me, some not, and posting my videos on the place formerly known as twitter and my ukulele Instagram. These videos are not me showcasing my best. It’s just…
-
The Nitty Gritty: Interview with Paul Crenshaw
By Charlotte Hamrick Paul Crenshaw and I have at least one thing in common, we both grew up in a small, conservative, rural town in the American South. But while he was still a boy in the 1980’s, I was a young adult just moved to the big city. Our experiences during that time were…
-
Soundscapes: Word Treasure
By Erin Calabria I am fifteen, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom with a book of poems in my hands. Because I am fifteen, I don’t talk to anyone. I spend much of my time alone in this room, but then again, I am not really there either. Instead, I am traveling between…
-
Artful Academics: A Sermon and Prompt for An End Time
By Brandy McCann The world is changing. The wheel is turning. The tower is crumbling. It’s post-pandemic; it’s the dismantling of the old patriarchy; it’s little and big resistances to the-way-things-were everywhere. These are exciting times; these are scary times. We’ve been wandering around in the wilderness for nigh on 40 years now, and sometimes…
-
My Rugby Life. My Writing Life.
By Chris McGinley I should’ve started earlier. I didn’t begin writing fiction until I was fifty. Yes, I’m pleased with what I’ve achieved so far. I’m thrilled to be included in writerly events, to exchange rejoinders with people way more talented than me–Bonnie Jo Campbell, Chris Offutt, Julia Franks, Silas House. And I’m over the…