These days, when friends ask how my mother’s doing, I say she’s enjoying her Alzheimer’s. That may sound shocking, but it seems to be the truth.
While We Await a Cure for Alzheimer’s: The Mother I Know by Corinna Fales
Category: Creative Nonfiction
Matriarch by Alyson Bannister
My mother reads aloud from a book she just purchased, a sort of comedic take on the customs, sayings and mannerisms of Southern women. At least I hope it was a comedic effort.
The Piano Sale by Lucille Rains
It was unusual for anyone to shop for a piano on a Friday night, much less expect to have it delivered and tuned that same night, but this was a special occasion. Istvan was getting married over the weekend and he wanted to surprise his bride, Katalin.
The Second Education by Michael Milburn
Every year my middle school students ask me why I became an English teacher. They appear to respect my colleagues and me; one or two might even admit to considering teaching as a career, but the tone of the question is usually incredulous.
Dust to Dust by Emily Johnson
That day in mid-August in the Congo was late in the dry season— the sun a seared-copper disc, a cigarette burn on the sky’s perfect palate of skin. I stepped off the boat at the “port” into the sucking, ankle-deep grey mud. I lost a sandal.
Junk an’ a Po by Kirby Wright
Our father told us he was worried about our mother because she was older and sometimes having a baby later in life made giving birth risky. He said another worry was they’d given her a room on the eighth floor and that, if there was a fire, she wouldn’t make it out alive.
The Ravioli Incident by Alex Belz
It’s an effort to prove to her that my love is so great I will create a romantic dinner just for her. I will learn how to cook ravioli. I will purchase a ravioli-making machine.
The Coast by Noriko Nakada
I sit under cloudy skies on a seaside pier where the cool air is heavy with salt. I wrap my arms around the thick rail and rest my chin on the edge. My girls’ size 8 shoes hang, tiny, above the foam of waves crashing against the columns of the pier.
Los Angeles, 1965 by Ruth Keally
A memoir poem…
The Reluctant Grown-up by Fred Amram
In 1938 I was five years old and I could already feel my childhood slipping away. Mutti first noticed my developing maturity one day when a loud demanding knock frightened her. Mutti’s face tightened and she pursed her lips. The Victorian pallor, in which she prided herself, seemed especially white. We both looked at the door as if awaiting a miracle.
