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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…
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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…
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Country Craft: Look Up
Remember the Big Picture in Revisions By Stuart Phillips About a hundred feet down a gentle slope from our house stands the remnants of a small orchard from the 1800s. When we moved in, all that remained were five apple trees, branches so tangled from years of neglect they were almost barren. I pruned them…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…