Bereavement by Lauren Teller
A friend, or a date, or a stranger who spotted him lying in the street, a person brave enough to touch a seizing, unconscious man, would search Eric’s pants for...
Category: Identity
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.
Books/Grand Prize Winner/Identity/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/Race Matters/Society/The Memoir Prize for Books/war
Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen by Gint Aras
An Excerpt from The Memoir Prize 2021 Grand Prize Winner: Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen, by Gint Aras.
10 Minute Read/Adversity/Art/Escape/Featured/Family/Fathers/Identity/Justice/Loss/nonfiction/Refugees/Society/Survival
KGB search, Chop Train Station, The Promised Land By Ella Reznikova
My father and mother are trapped in this country, waiting for many years for permission to immigrate. Every six months he patiently goes alone to the Soviet Vis...
10 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Escape/Family/Identity/Loss/Love/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships
The Mermaid By Jean Sheppard
Only when the moon rises do I see it, see her—the glint of silver and then green and silver, the flash of scales. Only then do I know: my mother is a mermaid, a...
Journey By Gail Aldwin
"It's taken years of drafting and redrafting novels, playing around with poetry, structuring short stories, to come to a point where I feel entitled to call mys...
10 Minute Read/Aging/Being Body/Childhood/Fathers/Girls & Women/Identity/Loss/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/Sexism/Society
Laguna Main by Clementine Moss
Jim Morrison lolls on the beach in my mind, and I let go of the day and follow him down to this other world. Do women get to be so free, lounging, writing, owni...
Brands and Promises by Author Fajer Alexander Khansa
This short experimental piece of approximately twenty four hundred words explores questions of belonging from the perspective of a Syrian boy who lives in diffe...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Art/Being Body/Childhood/childhood sexual abuse/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Loss/MeToo/nonfiction/Rape Culture/Secrets/Society/Survival
Evolving Body Language:Five Photographs by Toni La Ree Bennett
My left leg is stuck out as if I was on the verge of going somewhere. My mother will meet him for the first time three months from now.
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...
My Alexander Head by Beverly Pimsleur
Like everyone in our family, I cut Uncle Ben a lot of slack. He’d returned from the Second World War a paraplegic. He would spend the rest of his life on the si...
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Being Body/Domestic Violence/Featured/Girls & Women/Health/Identity/Inspirational/#MeToo/MeToo/Mental Illness/nonfiction/Rape Culture/Relationships/Sexism/Society/Storytelling/Survival/trauma/2018 #MeToo Selected Shortlist Essay
Healing Through Storytelling by Melissa Zook
The practice of medicine is based on the physician’s ability to gather story from the patient. Our story is our human identity and our humanity. It is also the ...
3 Minute Read/ACEs/Being Body/childhood sexual abuse/Escape/Family/Identity/Man in The Mirror/#MeToo/MeToo/PTSD/Rape Culture/Secrets/Survival/trauma/2019 #MeToo Award Winner
2019 #MeToo Essay 2nd Prize Winner: A Face in the Mirror by Sue Gano
In his place is a little girl with ragged clothes and a dirty face. She has my blue eyes and a cowlick that sits above the peak of her forehead. It has been a l...
10 Minute Read/Being Body/Divorce/Domestic Violence/Escape/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Institutions/Loss/Love/On Memory/Recovery/trauma
What To Wear To Bankruptcy Court By By Nan McKernon
How does one find self-worth standing before the evidence of broken dreams, unrealized potential, and past mistakes? This is what plagued me as I stared at the ...
Waterbabies by Heather Diamond
When he arrives, I am holding the paper bag (because the woman is always holding the bag) they gave each of us in the recovery room where one brash young woman ...