I was six, going on seven, when my brother, Nelson, came home on leave for Thanksgiving in 1943. World War II was in full swing. He was a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the U. S. Navy and a designated Naval Aviator. … I wanted to be just like him.
Most of my literary influences didn’t sound a thing like me. Virginia Woolf compulsively detailed upper crust London; David Sedaris laughed about his dysfunctional family…
I had a rather strange experience last week where, in the span of one day, three separate people recommended Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest book to me. It wasn’t even a suggested reading type recommendation. It was a “stare deep in someone’s eyes and whisper, you have to read this book” type recommendation. I was hesitant because…
HippoCamp, Hippocampus Magazine’s three-day creative nonfiction conference, is next month. Over on the conference website we’ve been posting Q&As with presenters. For this month’s magazine interview, we decided to share a mash-up of those “speaker and session preview” conversations.
At midnight, I sat, thirteen years old, curled into a ball inside the front door, waiting for the sound of Dad’s car in the driveway.
My father’s eyes stayed closed. Standing behind him, as he lay in his narrow bed, I stroked his warm, almost hairless scalp.
I’ve known for all my Laundromat years to never smile at anyone or to catch an eye…
It’s a beautiful pre-summer’s day with the temperature going to the mid-eighties. A welcome relief after a harsh winter and a spring that was more like autumn.
“You’ll be living here with five other nuns,” said Sister Helena. She opened the apartment door and we entered a dark hallway.
I sat crying in front of a receptionist in pink scrubs. No. Crying isn’t the right word. Crying is something you do at the end of a sad movie.
