-
He’s a Grin and a Frown, He’s a Skull in a Crown: My Brother the Artist Saint Down
You're perched on the shelf wherever the last reader decided to place you, always in the miscellaneous section.
-
Sleuths of 642 South: Ode to Hyperbole and a Half
I was an enthusiastic fan of Encyclopedia Brown, so the plan was to journey outward, beyond the walls of our house, even beyond the cul-de-sac, and to gather clues. We had a magnifying glass and a notepad for just that purpose. The only thing we were missing was an actual mystery to solve.
-
Writing The Music Of Pedro: Weaving Truth with Fiction
The story is fictional but very much based on true events. It reveals much about me, my life experiences, and a wistfulness for how I wish some things could have been. --Sergio A.C. Pizano
-
A New Ending to My Marriage: Dreaming Up a Better Story
There’s a reason I dreamt a better story five years later: "I was a shit wife" and "We were better as friends" or "I married too young" are reasons and excuses all in one, and less fun than invention.
-
I Suspect My Dad Raised Me to Rewrite His Book: On Harnessing Words of Dis/Encouragement
Much of what I was reading voraciously at the time could be called uninspired, but it scratched an itch, gave me something to mimic, and it was published. I wanted more than anything to do what those authors had done and smell my own words mixed with that pulp potpourri.
-
On Trauma and Triggers: Changing Routes and Running with Mace
In the past two years, I’ve changed my running route four times. Each time was to avoid a memory, and my border collie and I collect those like burrs.
-
“It’s Not You, It’s Me”: How I Embrace My Demisexuality and Define It For Others
Throughout my life I keep finding myself in the gray areas of everything, and there’s safety in liminality, privilege in ambiguity. For example, people usually don’t know where to place me racially when they look at me and even my claimed bi- and demisexuality put me in a position to simply disappear into heteronormative constructs in ways many queer folk can’t. I feel that this puts impetus on my role as an ally, a role which I want to justly fill.
-
Swapping Bitter for Sweet: Miss Gilmore Learns How to Charm a Widower
After Mrs. Bell returned to Bell Hall not three days ago, she sent a note to Ludley Park inviting my mother and me to tea and quibbled not in telling Mama that she had great hopes of my being just the thing to “uncloud” her nephew’s eye.
-
I Started Praying Again: Mary Oliver Taught Me How
A worshipful review of Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver.
-
La Mordida: Francesco Pays the Price to Spare His Son
Francesco stood outside his store inspecting a delivery when Diego Cordoba appeared down the road astride a horse, leading a man behind him at a slow walk--Joaquin, stumbling drunkenly and tied to a rope that was looped around Cordoba’s saddle horn.
