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: Issues
The Writing Life: Notes from an AWP Virgin by mensah demary
The so-called “writing life” will sweep me toward Chicago as the 2012 AWP Conference and Book Fair draws near. This is my first time attending the event; I don’t know what to expect beyond the advice and wisdom espoused by AWP veterans.
The Writing Life: How I Joined the Working Class & Yet Also Maintained My Sanity and Lofty Literary Goals; or How Following Virginia Woolf’s Instructions Is Tricky by Hilary Meyerson
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. – Virginia Woolf — Women writers just love old Ginny. We quote her chestnut about the ‘room of one’s own’ at the drop of a pen. The quote isn’t limited to fiction, but writing in general. Usually, it’s centered around the “room” part – the need for a physical space
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.
Prompts: Oh. My. God. What is that smell?
Everyone can get involved with Hippocampus Magazine with {prompts}! About each month, we’ll post a new creative nonfiction prompt, inspired by a real-life event. Fact is stranger than fiction–if we experience something unbelievable, others must have a similar story. From January 2011 “Oh. My. God. What is that smell?” Join the fun with our current…
Review: Anthropologies: A Family Memoir by Beth Alvarado
“My mother and I are sitting in the small dining room of her town-house; we are sitting at the table she’s had since I was a girl, but I am nearly fifty.” Thus begins Beth Alvarado’s memoir Anthropologies: A Family Memoir. This first sentence sets the tone and style of the book—clear pictures and underlying emotions presented in brevity and concise language that reads like poetry.
Craft: Reading Between the Lines in “Someone Like You” — What’s writing got to do with it? by Risa Nye
… appoggiaturas generate “tension in the listener,” … it’s this tension and release that results in the “tears and chills” of deep emotion.
As writers, we can’t rely on appoggiaturas to elicit this type of response in a reader…or can we?
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.
March 2012: Editor’s Notes
Happy March! It’s been unseasonably warm in my neck of the woods this winter. And I’m not complaining. It’s not spring yet, but it sure feels like it. Just yesterday at my day job, at Elizabethtown College, I snapped a picture of an art class having class outside. As I write this, I am procrastinating…
Editor’s Notes: February 2012
The February issue is live! This issue may feature a photo of heart-shaped ravioli on the homepage, but don’t let that fool you: this image is attached to a story about a would-be romantic dinner where our author opens mouth and, instead, inserts foot–not pasta.
