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 ...
Category: Society
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. ...
10 Minute Read/Featured/Family/Grief/Guns/Inspirational/Justice/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/Society
Name is a Four-Letter Word by Chris Parent
*Featured Image by Rollin Jewett A few days after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, I received a call from an organization ...
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...
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...
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An Excerpt from The Memoir Prize 2021 Honorable Mention: Our Family Walks by Nick R. Robinson; unpublished manuscript.
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...
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.
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Escape/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Love/men/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships/Society/Survival/trauma
I Am My Longing by Susan Ostrov Weisser
There were my mother’s stories, and there were my books. Books were imaginary but some books could be true; Betty’s stories were neither true nor not-true, they...
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Aging/Childhood/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Loss/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships/Secrets/Sexism/Society/Survival
My Mother’s Back by Mary Zelinka
Her admission that her diagnosis was terrible news showed a vulnerability in her I had never before witnessed. I had believed that nothing ever weighed on her,...
Adversity/Featured/Health/Inspirational/Justice/LGBTQ/Love/men/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/Society
In Sickness and in Health by Scott Bane
Right in the middle of some everyday activity, I’m overtaken by a sense of joy, peace, or contentment. The window often closes up just as quickly as it has ope...
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/ACEs/Childhood/Escape/Family/Fathers/Institutions/nonfiction/Refugees/Society/Survival/war
Passages by Rebecca Jung
My mother pressed her cheek to Leslie’s cold face and cried. She rocked back and forth, holding my sister’s limp body close to hers. And those Congolese women r...
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...
1 minute Read/Addiction/Art/Audible/Audio Visual/Black Memoirs Matter/Incarceration/Institutions/nonfiction/Society/Survival/trauma
A Poem in Prison: A film by Daniel Cantagallo (and Etheridge Knight)
Sometimes a voice stops you in your tracks. For me, such was the case with Etheridge Knight. During the past few years, I have been remixing old footage and aud...
Pincushion by Kyle Stedman
A humorous glimpse of boyhood, “Pincushion” is an audio personal essay written, narrated, and produced in March 2018 by Kyle Stedman.
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.