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On Death and Dying

Creative Nonfiction Theresa Kelly i. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about dying. ii. When my mom and dad had been dating for about three years, his dad passed away from pancreatic cancer. (To be...

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And So It Goes

Creative Nonfiction Luanne Castle Their beginning Pieter scrubbed before he visited Neeltje on the porch, but the oily smell of herring clung to his skin and hair, to his coat and boots. He left at ten...

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Medfield Revisited

Creative Nonfiction Brett Peruzzi In the few old black-and-white photos that exist of my great-uncle Jimmy, he is never smiling. A thin, narrow-faced young man with black hair swept back from a...

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Late Blessing

Creative Nonfiction Linda C. Wisniewski I slid a pan of cornbread into the oven and blessed it, like my mother, who made the sign of the cross over every cake, bread and pie she baked. In middle age, I...

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The Goddess of Sunday Brunch

Creative Nonfiction Autumn Shah The Tiki gods look forlorn, their power stripped. Pale yellow sticky notes with numbers written in Sharpie adhere to the sides of their wooden heads. One Tiki, the size...

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Ethnography of an Adult Ballet Class

Creative Nonfiction Laura Marostica The Old Lady, first, is important to the adult ballet class (“adult” here carries not a hint of eroticism). The Old Man also occasionally makes an appearance, though...

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Japan

Creative Nonfiction Mary Street The tires on the rental car crunched on the gravel as we pulled into the parking area. We could see the lights on in my mother’s first floor apartment, a sign that she...

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Secret Admirer

Creative Nonfiction Zixu Fan Kids in China do not call elderly people “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” but “grandma” or “grandpa” instead. As there were lots of neighbors living in our old apartment, I got many...

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How I Spent My Summer

Creative Nonfiction Marsa Laird It was the worst summer of my life. But it really began in the spring when my parents were yelling at each other all the time; I don’t know why. My mother even threw a...

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Confessions of a Sinner

Creative Nonfiction Fiona Chai 1. “I wish you were a lesbian,” I tell my boyfriend. He rolls his eyes. “Well, I like girls, so I’m halfway there.” Later, after we are full of dinner and each other, he...

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Ventured

Creative Nonfiction Tracy Lyall The ancient T-Rex and Brontosaurus, a Route 66 beacon jutting out to the highway from beyond the grave. Was it Big Bang? Our oil, our fossil fuels from you giant beasts...

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Case History

Creative Nonfiction Marsa Laird It’s a summer evening and we’ve gathered for a casual family dinner. Suddenly I put my wine glass down so hard that some of the wine slops over the rim onto the dining...

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Scars

Creative Nonfiction Dian Parker Eli came to visit with his girlfriend. I was happily married now. Eli didn’t appear happy. When I’d first told Eli I was getting married, without hesitation he had...

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Personal Effects

Creative nonfiction Kay Marie Porterfield That morning when I stood at your apartment door, sweat dripped into my eyes, and I wondered why it burned when tears don’t sting at all. They’re both salty....

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The Tomato

Creative Nonfiction Carol Shank Day three of my stay in Nice, I returned to the hotel with a magnificent red tomato I’d bought with the last of my money. The tomato couldn’t possibly satisfy my hunger,...

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Standards Of Living

Creative Nonfiction Riley Hansen When I was about to turn seven years old, I almost drowned. My best friend, Dierdre, was having her birthday party at her grandmother’s swimming pool. We kids were...

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Shelley Hack Black

Creative Nonfiction Celestine Woo 1979 My bangs are now sophisticated and asymmetrical, ready for entering junior high: they swoop down over my right eye, baring the left part of my forehead. My...

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Write As If Your Parents Were Dead

Creative Nonfiction Kimberly Cullen I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. My friend Dan, a writer himself, recommended it to me many years ago when I first started posting my writing. I bought...

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Death at a Distance

Creative Nonfiction David Sapp Somehow, I navigated my mother’s death from a desk. Actually, I wasn’t that far away—only eighty miles or so from everyone and everything, but there was a distance...

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The Charm of Novelty

Creative Nonfiction Elizabeth Bernays In the small, shabby living room of an old house in downtown Tucson a dozen women sat waiting. We were at a lesbian support group run by Wingspan—a non-profit...

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