PARENTAL RECKONINGS: Lassie, there’s a writer in a well!| reckonreview.com
It was 98 degrees with 90% humidity, and my thighs were sweating through a beige knee-length pencil skirt. He had to choose yesterday to kill himself, in the middle of summer, during a pandemic. It felt like a final fuck you. One last gag from a man who’d always had a dark sense of timing. […]| Reckon Review
The woods have a unique quiet. A silence, almost, but for the sounds of the whispering leaves as the wind caresses their surfaces. An occasional birdsong creates melody with the sounds of the breeze. My feet crunching softly on the dirt path are rhythmic, patterned, meditative. The light— chiaroscuro, a fractal sun dancing on leaves […]| Reckon Review
Brother Hank called yesterday and said, Brother John, I know it’s not a good time, I sure am sorry to bother you, it’s just that I figured you probably still had the keys from Christmas and you got that big truck, and I said, No, I know, it’s fine, I’ll bring ‘em by tomorrow. He said, Good enough. I thank you. Long pause, then: Now you tell me, would Sister Maisy like to be asked to do the flowers around the tomb, or should we maybe call up Janet? And I sighed and said, I think—ye...| Reckon Review
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Jeremy B. Jones’ most recent work Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries will come out in September 2025 with Blair Publishers. Cipher follows Jeremy’s fourth great-grandfather’s encoded writings while simultaneously grappling with the author’s own role in his family, particularly as a parent. This book offers a raw, honest look at the role of […]| Reckon Review
Maybe her philtrum is intact. The skin between her nose and lip a gentle slope, leading to a rosebud smile. She could have nursed from her mother’s plump breast with a strong suck, no whistling holes in her cat’s mouth. At school, perhaps Dawn held hands with her at recess instead of luring her into […]| Reckon Review
There are people who say they were close to Angela. Super close. People we used to know. They say her accident wasn’t an accident at all and the people who won’t accept this, can’t, because they aren’t strong enough.| Reckon Review
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
WRITING THROUGH ADVERSITY IN THE POST-TWITTER AGE AND THE HEALING POWER OF LITTLE STORIES | By Barlow Adams| reckonreview.com
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
A framed photo of a boy and his dog sits on the roughhewn table with claw feet, and the angled cottage rises behind the boy in lines dark as charred bone. The boy squints and rests his hand on the dog’s head. We know not the dog’s name, although there may have been a time […]| Reckon Review
Few things are as daunting as a blank page or an empty screen, the sheer weight of expectation lurking in all that white space can be crushing. It’s a heaviness that settles in your chest, threatens to cramp your fingers, daring you to prove you have the words, that you’ve still got it, whatever it even is. During times of grief, illness, burnout, or sheer loneliness—that challenge can feel like too much. I can’t count the days I’ve opened a word document, stared at the blinking cur...| Reckon Review
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
She had to drive three hours to meet the man. Cross the border into Tennessee, then Alabama. It was less like driving to another state and more like driving back in time. She’d taken a sick day for the trip, didn’t want to waste her limited vacation days. She got depressed when she thought about being chained to a desk in her own home. Sometimes she wondered if her coworkers even existed, or if she just chatted with bots all day.| Reckon Review
By Amy Barnes| Reckon Review
By Stuart Phillips| Reckon Review