Ripple Effect by Janis Butler Holm
As a little girl reading fairy tales, I came across the word “replied.” Though a bookish child, I somehow read “replied” as “rippled,” as in “Because I said so,...
Category: Funny
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. ...
7 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Doctors/Escape/Funny/Inspirational/Medicine/nonfiction/Parenting/Science/Society/trauma
Doctors and Torture: A Child’s View by Diane de Anda
As I watched this soft-spoken, self-effacing elderly man repeatedly humiliated by his wife, all the venomous rancor I had held for years completely dissipated. ...
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Books/Black Memoirs Matter/Childhood/Contests and Prizes/Featured/Family/Funny/Memoir/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/nonfiction/Race Matters/Society/Survival/The Memoir Prize for Books
Our Family Walks by Nick R. Robinson
An Excerpt from The Memoir Prize 2021 Honorable Mention: Our Family Walks by Nick R. Robinson; unpublished manuscript.
10 Minute Read/Adversity/Being Body/Featured/Family/Fathers/Funny/Gender Non-conforming/Identity/Inspirational/LGBTQ/Love/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/Parenting
Morning Boy by Stephen Palgon
Before my wife and I got married, my mother told me that my father had expressed concern about my future brother in law’s gayness being passed along to our chil...
The Shocking Truth About Jews in Sports by Jim Sollisch
I grew up in the Jewish version of The Wonder Years, an alternative universe where just about every person I interacted with was a Jew.
10 Minute Read/Divorce/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Inspirational/Love/Memoir/men/nonfiction/Relationships
But There Were Daffodils by Marian Rogers
In a second union, things you took for granted during those years with your first spouse float in your unconscious like twigs along a clear or muddied stream, o...
Bombardment by Julie Benesh
I am over 50, feeling 70 and used to being semi-invisible in big, sexy Chicago and currently dressed for something as far from clubbing or prostitution as anyon...
Pincushion by Kyle Stedman
A humorous glimpse of boyhood, “Pincushion” is an audio personal essay written, narrated, and produced in March 2018 by Kyle Stedman.
7 Minute Read/Art/Being Body/Childhood/Family/Fathers/Funny/Girls & Women/Identity/Inspirational/Memory/nonfiction/Society
@clotheslinetimeline by Maud Kelly
Hell hath no fury like an 8 year old about to not get Western Barbie. Christmas was not our strong suit. Easter—that my parents could pull off. It all happens i...
5 Minute Read/Being Body/Funny/Girls & Women/Inspirational/Man in The Mirror/men/morality/nonfiction/personal essay/Sexism/Society
Hugging Gloria Steinem by Robert Bason
When the seventies arrived, I began to learn about feminism. Men could be intimidating. We were intimidating with our physical size, our attitude. I began to pi...
10 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Escape/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Love/Mental Illness/Mommy Dearest/nonfiction/trauma
When Grandma Went to Pakistan by Sheree Winslow
I’m not sure if my mistake was in joining together reality and fantasy or if I simply was treading someplace where I didn’t belong.
15 Minute Read/Cancer/Escape/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Grief/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Mommy Dearest/nonfiction/Relationships
Anyway – A Memoir Excerpt by Barbara Tyler
His quiet Southern lilt didn’t match what he was saying. There should have been magnolia petals falling out of his mouth or some exhaustive yarn about his mothe...
At Long Last, I Can Cook: Lessons from Ina Garten and Grandma Ida by Karen Galatz
By episode 20 or 21, I started thinking of cooking in a new, sacred light. I felt a profound need to honor Mom and Grandma by finally learning to cook.
20 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Featured/Family/Funny/Grief/Health/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Love/Memory/Mental Health/nonfiction/On Memory/personal essay
Debris by Cindy Bradley
After hip surgery, my father’s memory is all over the map. As he recuperates in rehab, he tells us he’s been to Spain, England, Oakland and even Kabul, all in t...