nonfiction Archives - Page 2 of 11

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...

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...

1 minute Read/Childhood/Flash/Funny/Girls & Women/Grief/nonfiction/Sexism/Society

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,...

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/Adversity/Black Memoirs Matter/Escape/Identity/Immigrants/Inspirational/Justice/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/morality/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Society/Storytelling/trauma

“Into the Racial Divide, A Story of Hope” by Jerry Waxler

In 2020, George Floyd's sadistic public murder ripped away the grand illusion of universal empathy at the core of the American Promise and vividly demonstrated ...

1 minute Read/ACEs/Being Body/Featured/Girls & Women/Justice/#MeToo/MeToo/nonfiction/Sexism/Society/trauma

Walking Home by Kate Zobel

I am twelve years old and, between fifth grade and seventh grade, I have gone from flat-chested to a Double D cup. Some girls envy me, and gossip, but they don’...

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...

5 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Inspirational/nonfiction/Race Matters

Permission by Diane Gillespie

She was frequently absent from my class, sat in the back with another African American student, and never participated. I wrote notes on her papers to come to ...

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...

5 Minute Read/Domestic Violence/Featured/Girls & Women/Justice/Loss/nonfiction/Society

True Crime by Hilarie Pozesky

Melissa was killed six years ago. A couple of years after, I learned a TV show was to feature her story. I felt compelled to watch it. The show opened with the ...

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. ...

10 Minute Read/Featured/Faith/Institutions/morality/nonfiction/Religion/Spirituality

Finding Satan on the Road to Damascus by Spencer Soule

Considering most Latter-Day Saint missionaries build their faith on a manifestation of God and Jesus to a 14-year old boy in upstate New York, many young Mormon...

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. ...

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...