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 ...
OUR 2019 PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES
Memoir Magazine is proud to announce our first #Pushcart Prize nominations! Congratulations to Michele Gutierrez @michelegutz,@samuelautman, Sara J. Sutler-Cohe...
5 Minute Read/Adversity/Black Memoirs Matter/Family/Institutions/Literature/Loss/nonfiction/On Memory/Refugees/Society/Survival
Memoir of a DREAMer by Magda X
When collateral damage becomes acceptable, the room dims. The brokenness of the world is no longer the problem of others.
10 Minute Read/Girls & Women/Institutions/Justice/LGBTQ/Literature/Memoir/nonfiction/Rape Culture/Sexism/Society
Three Women Walk into a Bar By Annie Krabbenschmidt
As a gay woman, I have acquired a quick bar banter that cuts men loose before they can get my name. In response to their drunken prattling, I cut to the chase. ...
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...
#Recovery Essay Contest Winners Announcement
And the winners are...
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Family/Health/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Mental Health/nonfiction/On Memory/Regret/writing/2018 Recovery Essay Award Winners
How to Write a Healing Story by Author Cameron Shenassa
I have a student who is failing my class. He wants to be writer, but he comes to me and tells me that he can’t write because he is depressed. He is wearing paja...
15 Minute Read/Family/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Love/Memoir/nonfiction/On Memory/Recovery/Regret/trauma/2018 Recovery Essay Award Winners
Losing My Words by Author Evelyn Krieger
If recovery means you are no longer sick, or even that you are simply functioning again, then perhaps I have recovered.
12 minute read/Addiction/Funny/Inspirational/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/On Memory/personal essay/Recovery/Society/2018 Recovery Essay Award Winners
Being the Lie by R.J. Roberts
Everyone in rehab has a very serious neck injury. It’s the hardest injury for doctors to accurately diagnose, even with modern MRIs and cat scans, the neck is ...
Fifty Miles by Sheryl St. Germain
If I were a religious person, I would say something blessed me that day. But I’m not a religious person. Perhaps some part of me believed, as I still do, in the...
10 Minute Read/Girls & Women/Grief/Health/Loss/Memoir/#MeToo/MeToo/nonfiction/Rape Culture/#SAAM/trauma/2018 #MeToo Selected Shortlist Essay
Smeared by Rachel Carson
"Did you know some hospitals have an entire department dedicated to rape victims?"
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Girls & Women/Loss/Memoir/#MeToo/MeToo/nonfiction/Rape Culture/The Life/trauma/2018 #MeToo Selected Shortlist Essay
Blowjobs by F. M. Walsh
We avoid their touch by pissing our pants on purpose. Boys don’t want to fondle girls who piss their pants. Fucking babies. We hide. We find a way out of the wo...
Ticket to Ride by Audrey R.L. Wyatt
Surgery done, the ride slammed to a stop. The cancer was removed and I was pronounced cured.
7 Minute Read/Black Memoirs Matter/Girls & Women/Literature/Loss/MeToo/nonfiction/Rape Culture/2018 #MeToo Selected Shortlist Essay
Relax by Katharine Bost
I want to shout that I had only had one beer. I want to jump back in the cab and pray that the driver takes me home even though I don’t have any cash for him. B...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Childhood/Escape/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Mommy Dearest/nonfiction/PTSD/Secrets/The Life/trauma
They Don’t Live in Dallas by Anna Mullins
Sometimes you lie so much you begin to believe what you say. Sometimes you don’t even have to say the lies out loud to believe them.
Going to Find by David Hensley
I was in the kind of love that puts a rock in your heart and stuffs your eyes with cotton, but you hold that rock and that cotton. Because that’s all you’ve got...
10 Minute Read/Aging/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Identity/Literature/Love/Memory/Mental Health/nonfiction
It’s Not Much of a World Without Unicorns by Jillian McKelvey
I think these people mean to say, that my mother with Alzheimer’s, behaves differently from the mother I knew without Alzheimer’s.
3 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Health/Institutions/Literature/Loss/Memoir/MeToo/Mental Health/nonfiction/On Memory/PTSD/Recovery/trauma
Day 4: Mental Health Unit, Providence Hospital, Anchorage by K. Beth
She says she’s got Borderline Personality Disorder. That’s like the worst thing you can have, worse than Bipolar. I feel better being around her because suddenl...
Lessons Learned by Diane Malk
“there’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny and there’s no Santa Claus—remember, we’re Jewish!”
1 minute Read/ACEs/Featured/Girls & Women/Haibun/Literature/Loss/Memory/nonfiction/On Memory/Secrets
Back to Jackfork Quarry by Stacy Pendergrast
This is the place I remember—with its pine branches, hung like lace canopies. There is the rock slab where they took turns, each first pounding his chest, then ...