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Afterglow

By morning, feathers had settled lightly in the corners of the bathroom. They swept up into the air, though, as I moved past. Down, up and down. One brushed the nape of my neck as I stepped from the shower, and clamped there to damp skin. A torn comforter; a small domestic catastrophe....
Join Us for a 4-Journal Creative Nonfiction Reading at AWP Conference

River Teeth is thrilled to announce it will again take part in an offsite creative nonfiction reading at this year's annual AWP Conference. The offsite reading will be on Friday, March 9 and will include readers from River Teeth, plus Under the Gum Tree, Fourth Genre, and Hippocampus.
Of Poets, Police Dogs, and Their Handlers

In a journey through four countries, pursuing canine law enforcement units and their stories, Rose delivers a multi-faceted immersion memoir: observations, interviews, analysis, criticisms, and praise of how different nations approach policing with and without dogs.
Keywords: book review, rachel rose
Little Traveling Altars

I am calling my current situation 'vow of poverty' because that sounds much nobler than 'slumming' or 'lazy.' Vow of poverty helps me remember that the reason I will eat chickpeas for dinner for the next three nights is because there is a larger goal at hand....
Cooking for Grandpa

Grandpa slumps on the three-legged stool, his clouded brown eyes intent on me as I reach into a cabinet drawer to scoop flour for dredging pieces of chicken soaking in a bowl of buttermilk....
Afghan Roses

In Massoud's Circle, weathered plastic shopping bags are captured by the thorns of Afghan roses. Armored vehicles crisscross in formation. Liberators with their guns pointed bully civilian cars to halt. My convoy breezes by, failing to free the bags from their thorny prison....
Living With Ian

My brother Ian and I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have a small brick house with wooden floors and a wall of French windows, letting in plenty of light....
The Country Cousin to Love

When a friend of Kate Carroll de Gutes remarked about how often the positive aspects of others' lives are mentioned on Facebook, as opposed to the negative, de Gutes, in the essayist's quintessential way, got to thinking. What her musings sparked is The Authenticity Experiment...
Keywords: book review, kate carroll de gutes
Ripple (repeat)

On a rusted railroad bridge overlooking Ohio's Rocky River, I stand with my father beneath an ocean blue sky and listen to the water's murmur. My father removes his glasses and points to a large rock beside the lower bank...
The Day to Day

Sifting the flour. Squeezing the lever once. And then waiting. For a moment, it is winter again. I take my finger and make snow angels in the little blue bowl.
Wake Up

I cannot take my children hiking without them mentioning babcia and dziadek and how they like to hike. Did you know they are going to take me camping one day? they say. Our children have seen their grandmother for the last time although she is still alive in a living room in Queens.
Sometimes Life Is Like That

One morning I was riding my bicycle to work in a low drizzle, and the skies opened. I was going down a hill--water streaming in my eyes, raindrops pelting my arms and face, a nonstop stream of kick-up soaking my legs--when I saw it.
How to Envy

In Cartagena de Indias, men walk down the streets carrying birdcages instead of briefcases, always with the same yellow waif perched precariously behind bars. It's important for the bird to see the world, one man tells me, his birdcage propped on the seawall, the sea crashing against the rocks a few feet away....
Oranges

It is a rare occasion, but I decide to eat an orange when I want to remember....
Slim & Sublime

In On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, William Zinsser extols the memoir form: "For me, no other nonfiction form goes so deeply to the roots of personal experience--to all the drama and pain and humor and unexpectedness of life."
Pushcart Nominations for 2017

We love everything we publish in our print journal, but we can only nominate six for the Pushcart Prize. Here's our editors' picks for 2017.
In-Betweens

A tiny green lizard clings to a brick outside the window. It takes in the late-morning light, attempting to combat the smooth chill in the air. I watch people filtering in and out of the restaurant wearing sweaters too thick for early September in Georgia.Â
Pigeon Prayer

Whether to call them pigeons or doves is a matter of perspective. We humans made them all one family, then deemed the white ones symbols of peace and purity, while the grey took their place in tales of plague and war....
Paris Street; Rainy Day

Back then, a woman of 17 could marry a man of 37 and the men would say, good for you, old chum, what a waist she's got, and the women would say, good for you, lucky duck, what lovely diamonds.
The Dead Baby Lives

Jennifer Sinor's birth, which is anything but ordinary, sets up the thematic trajectory of Ordinary Trauma, a coming-of-age memoir that doubles as a father-daughter story...
Lick Creek

My niece Charli, eight years old, is crouched in the creek, peering into the sunlit shallows, her face and arms and loose gold curls spangled with light. Around her, the shaggy green woods are alive and trembling...
Soft Spot

A few weeks into my second son's infancy, I've noticed that when the lighting and angle are perfect, I can see his pulse on top of his head, at the place where the bones haven't yet fused....
Signs

In the final week of my mother's life, a duck and her ducklings traveled by her bedroom window in a wobbly caravan, declining in number with each daily pass. (The cats, I suspect: ruthless.)...
Did You Notice Me?

Aunt Beverly was not my aunt at all. She was the family hairdresser and a friend of my mother's. She believed in God, but her allegiance was firstly to those around her...
Mentor of Cool

There were Beatniks and wannabes like me in 1959 Portland coffeehouses. We sipped espressos and listened to cool jazz, whatever that was. Too young and inexperienced to distinguish authentic from pretentious, I tried, impossibly, to be cool.
Words and Their Users: Wrestling with John D'Agata's Canonry

I suppose it was inevitable. The age of self-disclosure-memoir writing, celebrity tweets, one-person Broadway shows, jihadist pre-bomb goodbye videos-would give way to one editor's need to order up a new hegemony for that intractable thing we call the essay...
Keywords: a new history of the essay, book review
Anne Barngrover
October 3, 2017Anne Barngrover is the author of two books of poetry—Brazen Creature (2016 Editor’s Choice Selection, University of Akron Press), Yell Hound Blues (Shipwreckt Books, 2013)—and co-author, with poet Avni Vyas, of the poetry chapbook Candy in Our Brains (CutBank, 2014).
Keywords: 19-1
Editor's Notes, Volume 19, Number 1

Remembering Brian Doyle and Nancy Mairs
Keywords: 19.1
River Teeth Journal Issue 19.1

This issue features work by Ann Hood, Jessica Lind Peterson, Ana Maria Spagna, Ted Gup, Sarah Curtis Graziano, Amy Peterson, Nicholas Dighiera, Cecele Kraus, Joan Frank, Marilyn Moriarty, Anne Barngrover, and Mary Haug.
Keywords: 19-1
Nicholas Dighiera
October 3, 2017Nicholas Dighiera received an MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage and is currently working on a nonfiction project called 53 Days With My Kids.
Keywords: 19-1
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