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The Fractured Mirror: Tell Me the Biggest One You Know
By Edward Karshner My day job is researching the intersection of time and folklore. I study how stories reveal an understanding of ourselves in time. Do we flounder in, what David Southwell calls, “the warped gravity” of nostalgia? Or do we founder under the crushing weight of fatalism? In folktales, I’m always looking for a…
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Healthy Habits: A Parable
By Valerie Peralta Once upon a time there was an ordinary woman who wanted two things. She longed for a body that mirrored the svelte images she saw clad in bikinis on Instagram. A flat stomach flanked by taut arms and legs. And she desired to pen poems and stories that captivated the hearts and…
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Country Craft – Let’s talk: An Approach to Writing Conversations
By Stuart Phillips Late summer we transplanted thirty hosta from our front walkway, wheeling barrowsful to more welcoming spots in the shade. As my wife and I planned the new plantings, we went round and round with competing combinations before we realized that what she really wanted was a lavender hedge, and what I really…
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Mother/Mutt
Creative Nonfiction by Annie Marhefka Our mother rescued a mutt after we all grew up and left her. She had been abandoned, she said. The mutt had, too. I had escaped to college; my brothers found jobs that afforded their exit, and poof, like ants scattering, my mother joked with a tender smile. I guess…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: Good Grief
By Michaella Thornton Lately, it’s been harder to gather my resolve and joy to bake or write much. I won’t lie; I’ve been struggling through a slow-moving season of pain and endurance, and that’s okay, too. My focus lately has been on: Of trying so hard to remember good enough is great, Rome wasn’t built…
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Outsider Perspectives, Insider Narratives: In Defense of Omissions
By Mandira Pattnaik In the Summer of 2020, peak-pandemic times, I received my first writing solicitation. The topic was to write a micro-memoir. I had never written such a thing before, and like the way I am, the challenge itself made me accept the offer. In near impossible times, we had become more nostalgic. With…
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Flexing My Creative Muscles: Running from Zombies, My Apple Watch Overlord, & My Health
By Melissa Llanes Brownlee I run. Not fast, not far. I can run 5 to 10 kilometers without dying. If I told my teenage self that I would run by choice in my 40s, she would be laughing her ass off. In 2018, after my yearly health exam in which I got Cs and Ds…
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Soundscapes: Abiding with Birds
By Erin Calabria It is a clear, mild day in October, my first time home in nearly three years. All the leaves are glowing, suspended in translucent tiers of colored light, just on the brink of letting go. My brother turns off the road, parks, then leads the way into the woods. Almost as soon…
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we drink hot chocolate when the world ends
Creative Nonfiction by Jim Almo My phone rang on December 20, 2012. My mother was calling to say goodbye. My aunt had messaged earlier: “Your mother’s batshit crazy. She called in tears to say she’s sorry I won’t be with her in heaven. Her church thinks the ancient Mayan calendar is predicting the end of…