Nonfiction from Hannah Cajandig-Taylor
Photo: Clay Banks Retelling Dawn My knuckle scrapes dry bark. I am searching for wolves where I know there are no wolves. This skin pales, my eyes bloodshot as targets, the gangly forest stretching up & up, its needled arms stories off the ground. From the underbrush riddled with sharp teeth & knifelike jaws. I […]
Nonfiction from Rachel Laverdiere
Photo: George Pagan III For the Love of (Dis)Order “We adore chaos because we love to produce order.” – M.C. Escher I sandwich the pillows that were yours between the bed and the wall, inhale the scent of freshly laundered sheets and wait for sleep to descend. Eventually, I stare out the window. Attempt to […]
Nonfiction from Beth Bilderback
Photo: Matthias Heyde Disaster Lover (June, 2020) A match lights a spark, the final straw, and blows up centuries of rage. One section of the Sunday New York Times reads simply, “The World is Broken.” My son wanders out into the city late one night and experiences tear gas for the first time, sees the […]
Nonfiction from Vikram Ramakrishnan
Photo: Mylene2401 Directions for a Child Immigrating to the US in the 1980s Watch Appa and Amma avert their eyes while telling Thatha and Paati that it will only be for a little while; play with your stuffed elephant while they argue; see Thatha shake his head and Paati tap her cane against the ground; […]
Nonfiction from Marina Flores
Photo: Cristian Newman Three Things She Said in Spanish 1 “¡Cierre la puerta! Cierre la puerta antes de que entren los pollos,” my blind, wheelchair-bound great-grandmother repeated from the kitchen table, a cup of lukewarm coffee snug in her flour-dusted fingers. The thing is, we didn’t own any chickens. Still, I admired how each vowel […]
Nonfiction from Jessica Barksdale
Photo: Fallon Michael This Decade I got married and stayed married. No small feat, trust me. The arc of second marriage, shorter, a meteor of desire and hope, and then, whoa! We are on that same damn spaceship we were on before, with different people. Hang on. If you dare. A flare of need, a flame […]
Nonfiction from Shayleene MacReynolds
Photo: Ron Whitaker A Steady Rush In the beginning, there is the steady rush of quiet natures. There are the waters, winding, snaking, layering themselves across the skin of earth. In the waters, I get lost and wonder if I really want discovery. It would be lovely for the all of me to float away. […]
Nonfiction from Myna Chang
Photo: Jon Tyson Playground Justice In the grit of a 1975 farm town, 9-year-old girls weigh about 60 pounds, even wicked little girls with bad women for mommas, divorced mommas, but the boys that age are bigger, taller, and they’re allowed to bring their footballs to the playground, because there are no rules for boys […]
Nonfiction from Anna Hundert
Photo: Kara Michalczyk Lace Lessons lace (noun): cotton or silk, knitted or twisted, or clinging to skin, or lying on the table waiting to be touched (as in lace doilies) / lace (noun): they come in pairs, looping around each other in knots; they keep her shoes on her feet when she runs (away) / […]
Nonfiction from DiAnne Malone
Photo: Keith Misner Home Training “She didn’t say come in,” my sister whispers. She places her fingertips on my forearm as if that would stop me from opening the door, but my hand is already twisting the knob; my foot hangs, mid-step over the front door threshold at the house where my ancestors worked as […]
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