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Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Field Guide to Falling Ill

I can’t say what it’s like to suffer from a severe, chronic illness, the kind that knocks your life into a new orbit. But I can tell you what it’s like to be in the postscript of illness, its undead state, where the crisis has passed but recovery isn’t certain. It’s a dull, heavy place.

By Jonathan Gleason April 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

All-American

My perceived faults would be erased the day I donned the letter jacket that bore my last name across the back, all my inconvenient vowels blazing, with Cheerleader in a semicircle underneath.

By Kate Vieira April 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Dissent

The protesters were quite something to watch. On Zoom calls I would describe them to a friend in Brooklyn, who kept calling this the Summer of Discontent. What is happening to us does not have a name yet, I wanted to say. But it did not matter. The protesters were beautiful and bold, like revolutionaries.

By Kéchi Nomu March 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Updating My Bio

The Mystical: Leath Tonino is the author of a fragmented novella and 30 billion profound thoughts that blew away on the wind. His work has appeared in snowy fields and dusty canyons, and he has pieces forthcoming on the surface of moonlit lakes. His memoir is currently being translated into stardust and deep-violet silence.

By Leath Tonino March 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

How To Be A Woman

I learned a woman could wield the power to turn heads. She could capture a room’s attention and make everyone laugh. Everything else I knew of women’s lives told me not to trust this kind of power, but I wanted it nonetheless.

By Patricia Fancher March 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The End Of The World

Maybe the end of the world wasn’t fire and explosions and lawlessness and bodies in the streets. Maybe the end of the world was some smaller thing.

By Richard Larson February 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Sparrow’s Guide To Business

When you walk on sand, you leave footprints. When you work, you leave “workprints.” The people who come behind you will judge you by your workprints.

By Sparrow February 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Captain’s Log

7:17 — Wife yells, Oh, God, look! Dusk now, harder to see. What? I say. Bear! she says. To right, where riverbank gives way to pasture, large beast lurks in shadow of tree. Dark, terrible beast, now moving slightly toward us. Large, dark beast says, Moooo.

By Andrew Johnson February 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Sins Of The Mother

Although I still identify as a Christian, I am endlessly unpacking and discarding the church teachings of my childhood. My belief in God is no longer built on the fear of what will happen to me after I die.

By Anna Gazmarian January 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

You’re Not A Racist

You’re not a racist; you’re my liberal friend, the one who applauds my Africanness. But one day, in your home, you asked me never to leave the window open lest some Black — you blinked, snipped off what you were about to say, and continued — lest some thief climb through it to steal something.

By Bisi Adjapon January 2023
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