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Talk to Her

Talk to Her By Michael McAllister   |  March 1, 2021
I once took a job with a major online retailer, listening to the words that people spoke in their own homes to a voiced virtual assistant I'll call Amaya. Our ragtag team of English and Linguistics majors tapped away on laptops, categorizing the words for the developers so she’d respond better over time, listening to the private words of a faceless people.

On Sam Mountain

On Sam Mountain By Mary Lane Potter   |  February 22, 2021
At the peak—932 feet above the Mekong floodplain—beyond the holy caves and the Cham, Buddhist, Hindu, and Mother-Goddess temples that litter the twisting pilgrim road, a mother and father are teaching their young son how to pray.

“The Babysitter” by Anton DiSclafani: Writing the Braided Essay

“The Babysitter” by Anton DiSclafani: Writing the Braided Essay By Shelbi Tedeschi   |  February 15, 2021
I’ll admit it—I’m a sucker for a good woven essay. Call it a braided or challah essay, give it two strands, give it four. I’m drawn to them, and when I read a good one, I find myself pulling the pieces apart, trying to master the art of it.
Keywords: 19.2

Purse Candy

Purse Candy By Cora Waring   |  February 15, 2021
There's a single, beat-up black jack bobbing around my purse, its wrapper feathered from accidental collisions with lipstick tubes and wallet, the once-bright stripes gone gray. The taffy inside is stone hard but still offers up a spicy licorice warmth.

The Perfect Day

The Perfect Day By Lisa Hadden   |  February 8, 2021
The images are still with me thirty-five years later. The weather in the Northeast Michigan woods on Grand Lake is warm, heavy with fragrance of late summer, cedar pines, sandy soil, the water clapping the edge of the land. The turquoise sky turns to twilight with a soft glow of lavender rising.

The People We Once Were

The People We Once Were By Mark Neely   |  February 5, 2021
At the heart of Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn’s impressive debut is the moment when, after being found by her mother in a state of distress, she winds up, at eighteen, in a locked hospital ward and is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Keywords: book review

2019 - The Rock Cycle by Kevin Honold

2019 - The Rock Cycle by Kevin Honold February 5, 2021
The past is a living thing, palpable as the weather. In this collection of essays, Kevin Honold explores themes of history and its fading significance in modern American life. "Remembrance is morbid, unprofitable," he writes. "It's impractical,

Wildflowers

Wildflowers By Brie Deyton   |  February 1, 2021
Another set of packed bags. After another get out now. This time my mother, sister, and I landed in a trailer across the abandoned tracks. Fake wood paneling on the walls repelled all light, and years of cigarette smoke made every surface feel singed.

Le Sacrifice

Le Sacrifice By Terri Kent   |  January 25, 2021
Mom, sitting on the floor among a group of cross-legged Girl Scouts, teaches us a song in a language none of us know.

Leeches

Leeches By Katie Walsh   |  January 18, 2021
When we get home from the hospital, I realize the electrodes are still stuck to my father's chest and back. He says that it hurt too much when the nurse tried to remove them, so he told her to forget it. The confusion makes him this way, irritable and impatient.

Drawn In

Drawn In By Lisa Huffaker   |  January 11, 2021
I got better at drawing when I began to think of petting an animal. I sent my eye running along the spine of a thing, felt it warm and alive, arching its back into my palm. I moved my eye like I'd move my hand, stroking an edge, pressing against the body of a mass.

Meditative Naturalist, Intimate Essayist, Visionary Author

Meditative Naturalist, Intimate Essayist, Visionary Author By Robert Root   |  January 8, 2021
I began reading the essays of Scott Russell Sanders when I encountered “The Inheritance of Tools” in The Best American Essays 1987. I’ve collected his books of essays ever since and, as a life-long resident of Great Lakes states, have felt a strong sense of identification with works like Secrets of the Universe, Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World, Writing From the Center, and Hunting for Hope: A Father’s Journeys.
Keywords: book review

Rubber Tourniquets

Rubber Tourniquets By Kristin Engler   |  January 4, 2021
My four-year-old son plays with the blue rubber tourniquet from his latest hospitalization. A nurse tied it around his arm to insert an IV into the tender part of his forearm near the crook of his elbow.

You Should Ask for More

You Should Ask for More By Rachel Sudbeck   |  December 28, 2020
"Am I sad?" I ask my dog, because it's not something I recognize anymore. Sadness had come so thick and urgent for a while that the quieter emotions don't register like they used to.

Car Keys

Car Keys By Bridget Lillethorup   |  December 21, 2020
“I can drive today,” my partner said, and I tossed him the keys over the hood of my 1999 Jeep Cherokee. Up went the key to my mom’s house, which opened a small home of wall-papered, floral prints and a retired woman shuffling in a bathrobe, slowing sipping coffee . . .

The Ledge

The Ledge By Anna Reid   |  December 14, 2020
We've come to Switzerland and we're in love. It's the crisp air, the towering waterfalls and majestic peaks – a guise to hide the death that lurks behind the exquisite landscape where we've flocked to feel alive.

Real Mom

Real Mom By Mee-ok   |  December 7, 2020
Until I decided to come to Korea, I hadn't realized how special my mother was – how selfless, how enlightened. Most adoptive parents of her generation can't understand that searching for our origins isn't a direct affront to them. In truth, it has nothing to do with them at all.

Reckoning with Not-Knowing

Reckoning with Not-Knowing By Joanna Eleftheriou   |  December 2, 2020
Two wonderfully readable recent books probe the authors’ past losses in order to reimagine their and our futures. Dispatches from the End of Ice by Beth Peterson and The Memory Eaters by Elizabeth Kadetsky look towards Norway, France, and the influence Northern Europe has long had on American thought.
Keywords: book review

Jars of Daybreak

Jars of Daybreak By Robert Erle Barham   |  November 30, 2020
Roused before dawn, my siblings and I stood at the edge of the kitchen and marveled at gleaming red jars that filled the room. Our parents shuffled wordlessly from stove to kitchen table and back again, their bright faces like blacksmiths' flushed by forge light . . .

After Hours

After Hours By Rebecca Turkewitz   |  November 23, 2020
My grandfather wakes, confused and flooded with his body's toxins. "Sit down," he tells my grandmother. "We're going around a bend." He thinks they're on the train forty years ago. He reaches for invisible handholds . . .

The China Tea Set

The China Tea Set By Aisha Ashraf   |  November 16, 2020
The china tea set, wrapped in tissue paper, nestles in its warped cardboard box on the shelf inside my mother's wardrobe. She draws it down gently, as though not to wake it, places it on the bed, slides the lid off.

Photograph

Photograph By Sarah Ives   |  November 9, 2020
I push through the brambles and climb over the rotting, peeling fence that inevitably grabs at the cuff of my pants. Getting snagged, I always seem to fall cursing onto the beach, an unfitting way to enter the quiet beauty.

What It Means to Bless

What It Means to Bless By Debbie Hagan   |  November 2, 2020
In 1959, twelve-year-old Orr rises early with his three brothers, heads to the field with their father. They shoot their rifles and kill a deer. Just as they celebrate, Orr’s gun goes off again, this time killing his eight-year-old brother, Peter.
Keywords: book review

A Good Day to Die

A Good Day to Die By Shannon Cram   |  November 2, 2020
What I remember is the salt that formed in his pores like crystalline grains of sand. A million tiny specks covering his skin. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. The hospice nurse said that this meant his sweat glands were shutting down, squeezing out the last drops of his life.

The door with the fresh coat of turquoise paint and brass hinges

The door with the fresh coat of turquoise paint and brass hinges By Jennifer Todhunter   |  October 26, 2020
I open the door to see if you're there, the door with the fresh coat of turquoise paint and brass hinges. There is a noise, a constant; it could be the rain or the thick of my heart in my eardrums. I've never heard this sound before . . .

Editor's Notes 22.1

Editor's Notes 22.1 By Dan Lehman   |  October 19, 2020
Sitting here at my desk on April 22, 2020, writing these words, the world as I've known it has changed. Startlingly. Like many, I am locked down, masked, wary, guarding my six-foot radius. Outside, I'm still active, but alone.
Keywords: 22-1

Allie Spikes

October 19, 2020
Allie Spikes served as managing editor of Bellingham Review from 2019-2020 and currently serves as prose/poetry editor at Psaltery & Lyre.
Keywords: 22-1

Ren Jones

October 19, 2020
Ren Jones earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the College of Charleston.
Keywords: 22-1

Michael Dinkel

October 19, 2020
Michael Dinkel studied art and creative writing at St. John’s University in Collegeville Minnesota and at the University of Alaska in Anchorage where he lives.
Keywords: 22-1

Brenda Miller & Julie Marie Wade

October 19, 2020
Brenda Miller teaches in the MFA program at Western Washington University, and Julie Marie Wade teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University.
Keywords: 22-1

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