The pharmacist has to get the key, which is missing for the moment. The tech apologizes. It was hanging by the fridge in the back, just yesterday. He’s not sure where it went, but the pharmacist will find it as soon she finishes filling the Lithium prescription. “Just the 300 mg, right? You guys are pausing the 150s?” Yes, 300 mgs. Once in the morning and twice at night. We’re moving down from the larger dose, but if I say, “Yes, we’re going down in the dose permanently, I hope,...| X-R-A-Y
A spider took up residence in my conservatory several months ago. It’s not enormous, half an inch in diameter, but I hate spiders. Winter loomed. Those were days of dread. A seasonal terror gnaws at people who live at northern latitudes as the sun sets incrementally sooner. Here in Cornwall, the exact time of sunset means little when clouds and rain can make it night-ish at three. Having a spider suspended overhead by the door, just over my clothes-drying rack, doesn’t help when my inside...| X-R-A-Y
Hello, everyone. My new short creative nonfiction story titled “The Graves of Saint Paul” is now live at Hotel by Masticadores. I’m truly grateful to editor Michelle Navajas for sharing this…| Silent Pariah
A large sign at the entrance of an ancient Egyptian gallery at the museum warns viewers of mummified human remains enclosed in a sarcophagus in the next room and suggests an alternate route to bypass the “triggering” mummy. It reminds me of trigger warnings; how quick they are to label a story before the reader has a chance to peek in. I actually wanted to see a delicate face wrapped tight in ancient linen, to bear witness to a past where someone was loved enough to be held for eternity.| Reckon Review
By Amy Shea I didn’t set out to write a researched narrative nonfiction book. I’d spent over a decade writing mostly personal essays and creative nonfiction. But when I felt the pull to write on the topic of disparities in death and dying, which eventually developed into my debut book, Too Poor to Die: The […]| The Brevity Blog
I sat in the lobby, waiting for my friend. Two colorful beach chairs beside me. One cooler, large enough to hold fourteen cans, sat nearby. My black-and-white swimsuit peeked through my white coverup. “Going to the beach?” she said. My former life flashed before me, the one where I would have said, how’d you guess … Continue reading Sunday Shorts: The Beach Lecturer| K E Garland
Some time ago, while walking up 8th Avenue in the black night hours, I nonchalantly crossed the empty road, heading for home. What seemed like out of nowhere, a car came barreling at me. I froze in the middle of the street. The driver passed so close, the door handle brushed against me. The rear tires locked, causing the car to skid and fan towards the far curb, scratching the paint of a parked Chrysler before careening back across the lanes, swiping another parked car and losing one of i...| The Bookends Review
What shook them loose from those grim days, news from my mother’s uncle domiciled in Australia, a firelight dream, some cinematic malarkey, a maggot, or just bad memories? Emotionally ransacked in hospital waiting rooms and cemeteries, the economy’s renewal slower than my mother’s stoic sighs, she read my great-uncle’s blue aerogrammes, creative non-fiction right to the thin pages’ edges and along the sides like ant trails. An example of English parsimony, or adventure? Did my...| The Bookends Review
Editor’s note: This story reads more like a folk tale than creative nonfiction, even with the beginning sentence stating that it’s a true story. However, one section of Amanda’s cover letter brought everything together in a way that we felt was important. We also didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Amanda’s writing and ask […]| Reckon Review
Since all the essays in my new collection, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, incorporate facts I learned from asking experts, reading scholarly works, or rooting around in… The post What Else? – How Research Makes Meaning appeared first on Writers.com.| Writers.com
The week you died, before I knew you were dying, a black blur crossed my path in the cold, still morning. The creature paused to look back at me, a dog with no owner in sight. As I jogged closer, a narrow snout and a lack of collar signaled it might not be domesticated. The animal stayed still, tail down, until I got too close.| Reckon Review
I came across Griff Watkins (1930-1969) for the first time in The Fremantle Press Anthology of WA Poetry, edited by …Continue reading →| Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth
By Amy Barnes| Reckon Review
The guests at my brother Sean’s wedding have formed a huge circle on the dance floor, ready to watch Uncle Johnny and Aunt Peggy do their Peabody. They’ll have the floor to themselves. It’s a tradition in Mama’s family, a kind of initiation performed for each of the many cousins at their receptions. My aunt and uncle stand very straight and still, their bodies several inches apart, his arm around her waist, her hand on his shoulder, elbow sharply high. The hands they reach out with to...| Reckon Review
The house was so dark during those long winter evenings without electricity. You and I did our homework by the light of a hurricane lamp and the weak beams of setting sun that managed to crawl through the dining room window. The kitchen, with no windows except one over the sink that inexplicably opened into the closed garage like a trap, was hard to navigate. We needed a flashlight, do you remember? I was in fourth grade, which would have put you in seventh. Now, that seems so young.| Reckon Review
Jessica E. Johnson's newly released memoir hits the shelves to rave reviews.| Acre Books
| Acre Books
April is no joke the cruelest month. They should probably keep mercury in retrograde in April. Break the mirrors! Walk under ladder! Find some black cats and talk them into walking in front of you. There’s no way you could make April more difficult.|
On the first anniversary of Utter, Earth’s publication, I had the pleasure of chatting with writer and interviewer Constance Malloy over at The Burning Hearth. Here’s an excerpt from one of our many conversation threads: “…I think our present preoccupation should be one of defiant endurance. To hold fast. To defy the narratives imposed upon us, and insist on narratives of our own forging, ones where care and kinship and connection with the planet and with each other remain uncompromis...| Ekostories by Isaac Yuen
Photo: Ravi Palwe Minus World 1. Play through World 1-2. Stand at the far left edge of the pipe at the end of the level. From a jump position, break the second to last block on the ceiling. It may …| atlasandalice.com
Photo: K Adams Tall Oaks An exploration of a suburban New Jersey site through the homes and lives of residents from 2002-2021. _______________________________________________________________________ Note: Real names have been changed for privacy. Introduction Tall Oaks is a microcosm of a childhood—my childhood. It began as a street, but became an image in my mind for the […]|
I’m not a youngster anymore. Our family doctor says I need to exercise more, to lower my blood sugar and to lower my weight. So I walk. A lot. I walk the treadmill at the gym every other day. Four times a week, I head up the road to the Echelon Mall to do my five miles there. Yes, I’ve become a mall walker – I never thought I would. The first Sunday this March was windy and cold. I grabbed my favorite jacket, a well-worn, tan hoodie I’ve kept at least ten years longer than I should. I...| The Bookends Review
(I just happened to be both) When my parents divorced, I was seventeen years old. By that time, my alcoholism was in full swing. I came by it honestly. Alcoholism runs through my father’s side of the family like a brush fire. I wasn’t self-aware enough at the time to understand that my thirst for alcohol was a combination of genetics and a desperate desire to feel the way other people looked. Even if someone had told me this back then, I probably wouldn’t have cared. In fact, ther...| The Bookends Review
Suite 815 smells aggressively of hydrangeas, which makes me miss my mother and long instead for the typical sterile smell of hospitals that I am used to. I whisper my name to the woman behind the desk, and she whispers something back about date of birth and take a seat and with you in one minute. I take the photo-sized piece of paper she hands me and don’t hear what I am supposed to do with it, so I use it as a bookmark instead. As I sit, I realize the way I gave my birthday under my breath...| The Bookends Review
I wrote my first book in Kindergarten. It was about an ant: This is How a Robin Drinks: Essays on Urban Nature is my second book, and it is finally real. The advance praise is gobsmackingly wonderful, so I’ve made a page for what Margaret Renkl, Doug Tallamy, David George Haskell, Georgeann Eubanks, Erika Howsare, … Continue reading Book: This is How a Robin Drinks (an invitation, and recap of Launch)| SIDEWALK NATURE
Free writing empowers writers to jot their thoughts without being "good." Get free writing prompts and tips to jumpstart your morning pages.| Writers.com
The door to the high school principal’s office stood open, so I nipped in to get a quick opinion on my son’s desire for a summer job. He was not yet sixteen, and possibilities didn’t seem to extend beyond fast food, which he didn’t want to do. “You have to hate your first job and get fired from it.” the principal opined in his ever-congenial way. Neil Diamond album covers lined a couple of shelves of the small office, Neil’s grave visages suggesting he agreed with this thought. ...| The Bookends Review
"'It is particularly requested that no flowers be sent.' This is the newspaper notice written by the doctor’s only surviving son..." -- Katherine Rawson| Hippocampus Magazine - Creative Nonfiction Published Monthly
After a festival or a hike, my husband will ask, “Did you tell anyone about your book?” or “Did you mention you have a blog?” and I will answer “No.” Honestly, I forget. And I’d rather talk about Mosquito Buckets of Doom or Caterpillar Host Plants or Native Habitats than talk about myself, even when … Continue reading By the way, I wrote a book| Sidewalk Nature
Original Photo: Julian Hochgesang The Pigeons Are Gone I didn’t notice when the feathered creatures disappeared, but something was wrong. I started analyzing my insomnia, looking for that small det…| atlasandalice.com
Original Photo: Umanoide The Emperor’s Dentist Something propelled this great-grandfather of mine to leave. With dental instruments strapped to his back, the sandstone spires of Cairo dusted, he he…| atlasandalice.com
Storytelling is the process of weaving language to create rich, believable experiences. Learn the art of storytelling here.| Writers.com
Welcome, Christy Tending As the Sundog Lit team grows and changes with the fall season, we’re sitting down with each of our newest staff members. We talked to Christy, one of […]| Sundog