Sisters by Marguerite Welch
*Featured Artwork: “How Grey Was My Garden” by Elizabeth Cassidy I Easter Dresses Every Easter Mother made us matching tulle dresses with layers of ...
Category: Family
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Art/Childhood/Domestic Violence/Family/Inspirational/Memoir/nonfiction/On Writing/Parenting/personal essay/Secrets/Society/writing
Beautiful, Disturbing, True by Heather Caliri
But senior year, Katie’s talent moved from talent to sorcery. She drew what was real and unimaginable. Where did she get these ideas? How did she dare to put th...
Dementia/Make Me Cry/The Memoir Prize Winner/5 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Alzheimer's/Black Memoirs Matter/Childhood/Family/Fathers/Inspirational/Loss/Memoir/Mental Illness/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction
An Excerpt from The View From Breast Pocket Mountain by Karen Hill Anton
A memoir in the finest sense of the genre! An easy read, packed with astonishing events that flow into one another like water, The View From Breast Pocket Mount...
Glimpses of My Father’s Hands by Brent L. Kendrick
Sister knew my father longer—and better. Living closer to my father than I, she had spent more time with him. Being more blessed than I, Sister had more than e...
A lot You Don’t Know, Hijo by David Perez
Afterward, at a nearby coffee shop, Pops and I munch on grilled cheese sandwiches and drink café con leche. We talk about the different jobs the workers do, how...
10 Minute Read/20 Minute Read/Black Memoirs Matter/Escape/Family/Food/Identity/Immigrants/nonfiction
Triptych: African Portraits by Joanne Godley
Reconciling the discordance between your perception of how you wished to be accepted and the reality of how you were viewed and treated in West Africa was a pai...
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Craft Essays/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Identity/Immigrants/Inspirational/Love/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/Memory/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/On Writing/On Memory/Parenting/personal essay/Race Matters/Regret/Relationships/Sexism/Society/Survival/trauma
How 90 Day Fiancé Helped Me Tell My Story as the Child of a Mail Order Bride by Katya Suvorova
I don’t have a mom who fell in love how I was able to fall in love. My mother is a survivor in a way most Americans won’t ever understand. I am honored to be th...
Dementia/12 minute read/Adversity/Aging/Alzheimer's/Art/Being Body/Family/Food/Grief/Health/Identity/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Memory/nonfiction/Sexism/Society/Survival
“Iris on My Mind” by Odeta Xheka
Most days, I manage to distract myself from the horror of losing my bearing and blurring the lines in the fog of forgetfulness. I carry the markers for Alzheime...
Dementia/7 Minute Read/Aging/Bi-Polar/Cancer/Depression/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Grief/Health/Identity/Loss/Love/Medicine/Memory/Mental Illness/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/trauma
The Hope of Better Hearing Aids by Rosann Tung
I try to cool the heat in my cheeks that her sarcastic “wise, rich daughter” comment brings on. Her walker embarrasses me, too – unsightly, attention-seeking, d...
15 Minute Read/Adversity/Family/Fathers/Grief/Incarceration/Justice/Loss/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/Parenting
The Sentencing by Wendy Swift
The waiting was unnerving. Alli asked almost daily when Daddy would go to jail. For a second-grader, jail was something imagined from cartoons. We did little to...
10 Minute Read/Black Memoirs Matter/Family/Identity/Justice/Literature/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/Mental Illness/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Religion/Society/trauma
Main Street Madness by Mary McBeth
But I don’t say that, instead I will say that I’m going to build a Tiny House, and ditch the double-wide. That way they will be awed instead by my quirky ingenu...
3 Minute Read/Anorexia/Featured/Family/Health/Identity/Literature/Mental Health/Mental Illness/nonfiction/trauma
Harrowing by Natalie Coufal
In the black-and-white photo I hold, Dad delivers his salutatorian speech to a small crowd. Dated May 1959, the picture is unremarkable except for Dad’s skeleta...
7 Minute Read/ACEs/Aliens/Childhood/Featured/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Immigrants/Mental Illness/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction
How I Discovered America by Sharmila Voorakkara
My voice climbed an invisible staircase until at the top step of my skull it jumped up and down and waved its arms in the air. “Wake up, mom! Wake up!” I said. ...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/childhood sexual abuse/Family/#MeToo/nonfiction/Pedophile Priests/Rape Culture/Religion/#SAAM/Secrets/trauma
Playland by Jacqueline Regan
On the way home, he took me here, to this place under the Tappan Zee Bridge, on the shore of the Hudson, on the front lawn of an apartment complex where neither...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Featured/Faith/Family/Fathers/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memory/Mental Health/nonfiction/Parenting/Relationships/trauma
Haunting Words by Emma Rose
I am lazy, fat, asinine, stupid. I still feel his red hot anger, the spit on my face, and the insults flying toward me. The feelings and labels remain, despite ...