Italian grandmothers certainly did not smoke. They cooked elaborate meals on Sundays. … Smoking was for gin mills, not ladies in house dresses.
They Had Three Daughters by Andrea Della Monica
Category: Essays
An archive of all of the personal essays we’ve published at Hippocampus Magazine over the years.
Perpetual Care by Mary Ann Bragg
There’s an old, neglected smallpox cemetery in the national park in my town that you have to know someone who knows someone who knows where it is…
The Great Unknown by Samuel Chamberlain
They call these divorce boats, Jim says from the passenger seat, referring to the canoe strapped to the car’s roof.
I Am Strong Because She Needs Me by Steph Auteri
“DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN,” one commenter pleaded after the piece went live. I imagined her down on her knees, white-knuckled, clutching the hem of my pajama top …
A Lack of Buoyancy by Bonnie Losak
One hundred and thirty ten- and eleven-year-olds piled onto three Greyhound buses that bounce and jolt their way north on I-95, heading for Orlando.
Stakeholders by David M. Novick
Back in the carefree halcyon days of my early years in medicine, there were only a few major hassles…
Tiny Relics by Kim Koehler
Since my daughter was born four years ago, she has been hospitalized for two open-heart surgeries and six heart catheterizations. Today is number seven.
Second Nature by Patricia Perry Donovan
I tossed both duffels (how light we traveled now) into the pickup’s bed, dogged by the sheriff’s warning: “An order of protection isn’t a bullet-proof vest.”
The Road Less: John Huston, Blue-Footed Boobies and Me by Tom Molanphy
My wife glumly watched a video of the Sierras on fire … It was the second summer in a row we would have to ditch a late summer trip to because of wildfires.
Red Wings 2017, or In Defense of Suicide by Cal Freeman
Tom Mazur took a picture of a length of empty bar inside Donovan’s, a relative shithole in Southwest Detroit … and posted the pic to Facebook and Instagram with the caption: “What a waste of time!”
