Above the Canyon by Daniel Coshnear
Far down below were trees and shadows; just beneath our feet red ochre rocks and dust and stubborn patches of thistle, and a surprise, a handmade grave.
Category: Literature
Memoir, Nonfiction, First Person, True Stories, Personal Essay, Travel Writing
15 Minute Read/Adversity/Black Memoirs Matter/Escape/Family/Justice/Literature/nonfiction/On Memory/personal essay/Refugees/Society
Besos, Not Borders by Ana M. Fores Tamayo
She needed to know more about where I began: my past as a refugee child.
Letter to My Husband Who Died Suddenly by Felice Aull
I want to tell you about your death because I feel some guilt about the final events of that night. I have repressed the guilt in order to keep living but I nee...
One Year After the Fire by Kevin Taylor
I’d talked with firefighters about extension — how a fire spreads — all the while constructing, mentally rehearsing and refining an elaborate plan for my own de...
5 Minute Read/Girls & Women/Literature/#MeToo/nonfiction/On Memory/#SAAM/Society/2018 #MeToo Selected Shortlist Essay
Avocado by Sophie Trevitt
I am eight. I am eight, and I am an avocado in a flock of magpies and I want to be a magpie so badly that it makes my fingers curl. I want to know what it feels...
Lies My Mother Told Me / Lies I Told My Mother by Daniel Uncapher
You must go to school. I’m too sick to go to school! I have eyes on the back of my head. I missed the bus! We can’t afford cable. I wasn’t watching TV!
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Girls & Women/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Memory/#MeToo/On Memory/Rape Culture/Survival
The Fade By Sara J. Sutler-Cohen
But I only knew the mechanics of sex, not its consequences. Who does at thirteen?
She Could not be Happy By Julie Ann Wenglinski
"Diana could not be happy because her mother was a grizzly bear and Diana was a human and they could never understand each other. From the time she learned to s...
20 Minute Read/ACEs/Featured/Justice/Literature/Loss/Memoir/#MeToo/nonfiction/On Memory/Pedophile Priests/Religion/#SAAM/Secrets/Society
A Quiet Exceptional Depravity By Michael Coolen
I left the seminary upon my conclusion that God was both a psychopath and a myth, and Christ had never existed. I saw no future for a priest who was an atheist.
Who Doesn’t Blame Their Mother By Stacey O’Connor
My husband and I have pushed the limits of our whiteness with the treatments we’ve gotten for this dog. Jake, the dog, is a proud of owner of what is called a “...
48 Hours By Grace Jasmine
The ex-Catholic in me keeps repeating the words “mortal sin” and the day is filled with unimaginable annoyances. Considering myself an empath and being so compl...
Addicted to Love: 38 Special By Tanner Ballengee
* Featured Artwork: By Michelle Nguyen Addicted to Love: 38 Special By Tanner Ballengee “I woke up this morning with a piece of past caught in my throat, ...
10 Minute Read/Identity/Literature/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/On Memory/personal essay/Secrets/Society
Life is a Fiction By Brandon Daily
I must face my own hurt and my own past, and I must continue on, not a fictional being at all, but one of blood and sweat, and that makes me capable of anything...
How My Father Groomed Me For Rape Culture by Sheryl Burpee Dluginski
My newly developed curves seemed to give me a dangerous power over my father and other men, which troubled me because I couldn’t seem to discern its appropriate...
Putting On Eyeliner With PTSD by René Ostberg
does this makeup make me look smokey slutty sophisticated safe soft weak or like a raccoon like a ghost a victim should I wash it off can I not just wash ...
Skylark in Tawny Mist BY Julie Ann Wenglinski
Before surgery, a rabbity young man in a white jacket hurried by and put his hand down the front of my dress, then bustled away. On my gurney to the OR, a chatt...
Getting Lost By Seth Pilevsky
Many years later, when Grandpa followed her into the abyss, I'm convinced that he whistled for her and she reached out to him.
The Desk By Sara J. Sutler-Cohen
My room was the base of operations for Dad’s drug dealing enterprise, a career he must have selected—I imagine in hindsight—to sustain his life as a musician
Hard To Get Over Lonely People By Sean Murphy
maybe my wife would remarry and live off the fat of my labor and I wouldn’t begrudge her because I was in a better place, drinking Bloody Marys on the great gol...