A Flash of Understanding by Melanie Brake
Nick the manager announced that he was heading out for boot camp in a few weeks. His career as a fast food manager was done. Better things were in his future. H...
5 Minute Read/Bi-Polar/Depression/Grief/Loss/Mental Illness/nonfiction/personal essay/Regret/Suicide
End Of Message by Jen Waldron
If you had asked me before this tragedy what the chance was of her committing suicide, I would have said zero percent. Zero. Ask me now and I’ll tell you, if it...
Forgive Me by Lisa Mae DeMasi
It was only a matter of time before one of us was going to break down and scream, beat our fists against the van’s upholstery in disbelief and frustration.
The Cycle of Time One and Two by Desiree Woodland
In presentations for Breaking the Silence NM, a program to teach mental illness and suicide awareness to youth, I wanted to reach young people before suicide be...
The Special Of The Day by Barbara Carter
No longer does he even want conversation. He’s in a hurry, wanting only one thing. He wants me as convenient as a drive-through. I sleep with him because I don’...
10 Minute Read/Adversity/Being Body/Featured/Girls & Women/Health/Inspirational/Love/Man in The Mirror/Mental Health/nonfiction/personal essay/Sexism/Society
The Shock of Self Love by Sylvie Beauvais
I traveled between France and the United States every summer, and in France I was beautiful, and in America I was ugly and people told me so. Beauty as a cultur...
Mammalian Diving Response by Olivia Swasey
I step out of the water. I have not drowned. I am new, just born today. The scars that mark my body and my heart have not been rinsed away, but I feel so new an...
Dancing with the Darkness of My Soul by Susan Moore
This is why people do it. This is why they cut.
7 Minute Read/ACEs/childhood sexual abuse/Fathers/#MeToo/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Rape Culture/Society/trauma
Tremolo by D.M. Henning
I opened my mouth; my entire body becoming a scream that ripped open the night, a scream so heavy it was mercurial, filling every corner of the room with a blue...
Atmospheric River by Cyndy Cendagorta
I never thought of our river as hungry until it swallowed Schafer whole, until he breathed water instead of air. He and some friends doused themselves in Jim Be...
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Being Body/Childhood/Domestic Violence/Family/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/nonfiction/Relationships/trauma
Love Sick by Charlotte Wilkins
Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, an elemental life not “frittered away by detail.” He wrote about the essentials of life, “I do believe in simpli...
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...
15 Minute Read/Adversity/Childhood/Escape/Family/Identity/Inspirational/Institutions/Justice/Man in The Mirror/morality/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Society
Turning Left: The Case for Social Democracy by N. S. G. Holm
Leaning Left, 2:1, millennials want America to be an “us” society. They call it socialism, but this is incorrect. They do not want state ownership and control o...