Nonfiction

by Jeanne Mack Yara We had a not-so-fast car that shuddered and shook down monumental, mostly-wild interstates in the early dark that came slipping over us as the natural progression after a purple, golden twilight. We had rock-stack mountains rising, throwing red-tinged shadows into the feathery field, visible in silhouette as we bumped Paul’s favorite Hold Steady album and I ate gas-station sour candy, sticky between my fingers. Spread out, in the back seat, after a lacklus

by Kurt Hildebrand Headway What if losing the battle between the White House Press Room and the President was the best thing that ever happened to journalism in this country? The press conference is as relevant to modern journalism as the grip and grin photo op. Information flows far more quickly than the talking heads who show up in a room and yell questions at people can keep up. The White House Press Conference is theater, not journalism. It’s an opportunity for people wit

by Claudia Maúrtua Fady Fady I remember surfing the Internet that morning of March 2017, scrolling down on Facebook as I did every regular weekday getting down to the office. I then stopped to read the sad and shocking, yet somehow expected, news. One of my favorite bands ever was coming to an end. HIM, earlier known as His Infernal Majesty, had made a disband and farewell tour dates announcement through their Facebook page, which read the band had run its unnatural course an

Thiago Zanutigh Point Blank: Poems by Alan King, Silver Birch Press, 2018, $15 paperback Reviewed by Scott Neuffer Alan King’s new poetry collection begins with “Hulk” in which the poet walks the streets at night growing into something superhuman. The poet is a black man and knows that in America, fear and suspicion are projected on him at all times, especially at night. “White people look at me / and pretend they don’t see / the breeding of slaves, / pretend not to know / w

by Camellia Mukherjee Ardy Arjun I was born in Calcutta, India to a posh, Hindu, orthodox family. We lived with the paternal side of my family until I was about five. My family was proud of the men in their household who were engineers, doctors, and lawyers of their times, while the women were just housewives. The women spent hours in the kitchen cooking meals for their husbands, father-in-laws, brother-in-laws — on winter nights, stirring the chicken with bay leaves in yello

by Claudia Maúrtua Joe Hernandez It was 2015, if I’m not mistaken; my son was watching a show on TV. Lately he was tuning in to a weekly show running every Monday night. He was so damn into it that I once sat down to watch it with him. Monday Night RAW , it said, then I remembered I used to know guys like Hulk Hogan and The Rock from these wrestling shows. It was World Wrestling Federation back then; they changed the F for E, which stands now for Entertainment. It is complete

by James Hanna Liana S Nietzsche said it well: “In individuals madness is rare, but in groups it is the rule.” But just what facilitates the madness of groups, their cow-like instinct to reject contemplation in favor of a collective cud? Is it the retractability of language, its potential to shrink all thought to the level of a verbal belch? If you cannot articulate, you cannot think — demagogues know this well. And so they appeal to the gut — not the mind. A couple of well-t

by C. Cimmone Roman Denisenko I hated having sex in the shower, but I was a dutiful wife: I held on to a soppy wet rag, moaned and moved as he finished, all the while rolling my eyes with impatience. “Mommy! The stove is making a funny noise!” “Shit. The casserole.” I reached for a towel with insincerity. He washed his hair, leaned his head back and stood relieved, still with open legs and closed eyes as I carefully escaped the bathroom. The kids had forgotten about the beepi

Avery Evans Bombing the Thinker by Darren C. Demaree, Backlash Press, 2018, $8.99 paperback Reviewed by Scott Neuffer A famous statue sits thinking with its legs blown off. And a poet who just wants a friend — who just wants to be whole — talks to the maimed statue, tells it dirty jokes, writes letters to its long-dead creator. This is the world Ohio poet and trampset contributor Darren C. Demaree creates in his profound and strangely touching poetry collection, Bombing the

by Gina Marie Bernard Matt Seymour You edge up the drive of my brother’s lake property, having dropped the girls off for the Fourth of July weekend; it is my first supervised visit since leaving the hospital. Our daughters are much bigger than their voices on the phone, but still struggle to haul a shared suitcase across the lawn. As I step from the cabin, they freeze — two raccoons caught in a yard light. My sister-in-law joins us, and they rush to her hips, too shy to say h

by Brittany Ackerman Garbriel Mom and I are in the car. I’m wearing my brown and white fleece jacket (my mom has the same one, but bigger, the adult version) and I drink my box of Hershey’s chocolate milk. We exit the garage of our apartment and drive into the grey daylight. She turns the corner. There is a straightaway looking out at the Hudson River. I’m still groggy from sleep, not a morning child, only soothed by my milk box whispering, deflating as I drink. My Velcro sne

by Allison Douglas Nicolas Dmitrichev I have nothing to be upset about. It’s just that when you’re driving down a curvy country road fantasizing about the car reeling off of it resulting in your bloody death, your attention should probably be roused. When you miss your turn because you’re carried away imagining the pain of your skull cracking the windshield alongside the scream and force of crushing metal, you should probably take notice. When it feels good to think this way,

by Tanyo Ravicz EJ Li The first time I rafted alone through the notorious Whale Passage on the north coast of Kodiak Island, I celebrated being alive by tying up at Port Bailey Cannery and buying a pack of Camel Lights for $2.70. I had already quit smoking cigarettes but I made an exception. At the cannery store I asked Tammy — she was broke and up from Montana — what the heck was going on. Why were the cannery workers twiddling their thumbs? “Everybody’s sitting around like

written and translated from Spanish by Claudia Maúrtua Christian Pantoja Hey, nobody asked me about my experience, at least not recently. When asked in the past about how I forged a musical proposal in a mostly masculine environment, my answer was always the same: hard work (both music and business-wise), making mistakes and learning from them, and gaining as much experience as I could every time we would step onto a stage, whether small, medium or large. It was not only my j

by Karen J. Weyant Maurice Rausch The Clarion River always seemed to struggle for breath. ​Its sluggish waters moved at a slow crawl, lazy ripples slurping the muddy shores. Even after a hard rain or a spring melt, the brown water seemed stagnant, thickening into dark pools before laboriously flowing south. ​The kids in our small community spent our summer evenings standing on the bridge watching the river that divided our northern Pennsylvanian town in two. Sometimes, we loo

by Daniel R. Snyder Calle Macarone Pick up deposit bottles and pennies. Ten bottles and six pennies buys a can of soup. Try not to let anyone see you. Stock up on canned vegetables when they’re two for a dollar. Clip coupons, but be careful. A name brand with a coupon can still be more expensive than the store brand. Try not to buy fresh vegetables in the fall because co-workers usually give away extra from their gardens. Don’t ask, but don’t turn them down. Figure out if it’

by Sara Fall Alberto Rodriguez Santana He came up to me as I sat in the park by the Capitol, sketching and trying to fill the last hour until I had to go to work, just a couple blocks away. The day will become hot, but at 10 a.m., it’s not bad yet. It’s warm, but not uncomfortable. There’s a line of rose bushes close by, and I can smell them, smell the warm grass I’m sitting on, and the clouds of pot smoke from a couple of guys sitting close by. It’s a little shocking to me t

by Jeanne Mack Etienne Girardet November 2014 Cherry angiomas are usually found on people 30 or older, but I’ve had a red dot under my right eyelid since I was born. My mom once told me it was the intersection of capillaries, right under the surface of my skin, overlapping so tightly that eventually their coloration piled up to shine through. It was a round and painless miniature red spot. For most of 2014, I woke up each morning nervous that it might’ve shrunk or faded, nerv

by Fabielle Georges The Cleveland Museum of Art Author’s note: This piece is the introduction to my memoir , Depression: A How-To Guide on What Not to Do , where I discuss depression, addiction, and mothering under the guise of a self-help book. In 1877 thirty-year-old inventor Thomas Edison recorded “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on a cylinder phonograph in one of the first reproductions of recorded sound. His invention called for tin foil to be wrapped around a rotating cylinder.

by Richard LeBlond Kaileen Fitzpatrick For most of us, life is not short when we’re young. There is plenty of time to waste, and we take our share. But when you reach your mid-70s (which, as an ex-smoker, I incorrectly presumed was beyond my grasp) life is decidedly short and getting shorter. In my decrepitude, I have increasingly found myself compelled to write about aging. As the edge nears, all is fair game. I have written about the deaths of loved ones, about biopsies and