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Lazy Days in a Tropical Haze
By Melissa Llanes Brownlee Have you ever wanted to run away to a tropical island? Laze away on a beach, sipping cold drinks, eating food made by someone else, listening to the tide roll in and back out again? I did just that. I flew to an island off the coast of Tokyo and for…
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Seventeen, locked up again
Creative Nonfiction by Carrie Lynn Hawthorne 1998 – Northridge Adolescent Psych Ward. Woke up in a Pepto Bismol pink room. The day before, my hospital roommate, Lucy, had found out she was pregnant. By her dad. When Lucy slept, she looked so much younger than fourteen. Too young to be motherless, with no home to…
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Healthy Habits: Intentional Steps Required
By Valerie Peralta When I started chronicling my journey toward healthier habits in Reckon Review, the stakes were high. I had eaten myself to high cholesterol and the largest pants size I had ever needed. Never one to embrace the phrase “it is what it is,” I did not want to take a spate of…
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Country Craft: Hello, darling.
By Stuart Phillips Our home in the country came complete with grapevines, gnarled roots thick enough you needed two hands to encircle them. These vines had seen things. However, fifteen years of neglect had left them exhausted and sprawling across a rickety system of rusted metal poles. They were, to put it mildly, unkempt. I…
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Heatwave
Nonfiction by Elizabeth Enochs The heat index is 113 when I take my lunch break and even on full blast my car’s AC is no match, and it’s not like I’m unaccustomed to heat — southeast Missouri rarely does “mild;” summers swelter and winters bite — but I’m thinking of those who don’t have AC,…
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One Sheep a Herd Makes
Creative Nonfiction by Kate M. Carey “Get Up. I need help with Snowball.” My mother shook my shoulder. It’s late winter in Ohio. Blowing icy crystals forced the farm animals into the barn. Not the best lambing weather. “C’mon on. Dress warm. It’s almost zero out.” She left my bedroom. I opened an eye to…
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After the Nashville Shooting
An Essay by Emry Trantham I. It’s 2009. I am twenty-three. My husband will be turning twenty-four at the end of the week, and I’ve been working for the last month to get him the perfect gift. It’s his first birthday as a dad. I want to get him a handgun. He can use it…
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The Artful Academic: Writing Unspeakable Moments
By Brandy Renee McCann Dissociation is a common experience among those of us who’ve experienced trauma. We’ve all experienced mild out-of-body experiences where we lose touch with the present moment—for example, zoning out during a conversation or binging on a TV series to get respite from a stressful period. Even intensely positive experiences can lead…