By U.S. State
By Country
An Apostate’s Epistle
by Caitlin Gent | Feb 4, 2018 | Placeless
Grace and peace to you from me, just me. I don’t feel comfortable dragging Jesus into my well-wishing just yet.
I Earnestly Want To Talk About Sports With You But I Don’t Know How
by Meg Schmidt | Feb 3, 2018 | Placeless
I was explaining this to a friend once when he informed me that cheering—or jeering—at a crowd was all about group community. “We rise and fall together, we yell and cry together.”
A Love Letter to Chimes
by Carolyn Muyskens | Feb 2, 2018 | Grand Rapids, Michigan
Local journalism can disappear without so much as a cry these days, and typically with only halfhearted protestation by the community.
When the Church Fails to Talk About Consent
by Katerina Parsons | Feb 1, 2018 | Placeless
In church, there is no need for consent, because the rules are very simple. Before marriage, the answer to any question must always be no; after marriage, yes, always yes.
The Real You Like Poodle Prints
by Lisa Philippon | Jan 31, 2018 | Placeless
In the journey of trying to become what I’m not, I’ve been finding out that I am capable of more than I thought.
Já jsem cizinec, a nerozumím moc česky
by Leigh Peterson | Jan 30, 2018 | Czech Republic
Trying to teach myself a notoriously difficult language, not to mention how to be a FAMU-worthy filmmaker, honestly sounded easier than not knowing what I was good at.
I Once Ruined a Balcony in Ghana
by Ali Carpenter | Jan 29, 2018 | Ghana
But the day came when I felt like I was drowning in my own stories.
Beware of Dog
by Matt Coldagelli | Jan 28, 2018 | Placeless
Before you plunge the pitchforks into my gut and toss the torches on my belongings, hear me out.
A Small Sound
by Brad Zwiers | Jan 27, 2018 | Placeless
An eerie fear creeps in, the kind that grows in stature the longer you don’t know where a sound is coming from. The longer you don’t know.
The Gluttony of Fear
by Jack VA | Jan 25, 2018 | Canada
Deep in the those woods, where the Severn River winds through White spruces and Balsam firs, I wonder if any of the trees are old enough to have lived during both Jack’s lifetime and my own.
Living
by Lauren (Boersma) Harris | Jan 24, 2018 | Placeless
This was the year I stayed. I stayed in a job. I stayed in a place. I stayed in a relationship (marriage, it turns out, will do that).
Authorial, Historical, Ghostly, and Sad: The Many Voices of Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
by Julia LaPlaca | Jan 23, 2018 | Placeless
In some respects, Lincoln in the Bardo doesn’t really feel like a novel at all (despite the insistent subtitle), but is rather a carefully curated collection of voices that reside in some literary bardo between genres.
Realized, Realizing
by Paula Manni | Jan 22, 2018 | Italy
Our archaeology professor was a young, soft-spoken postdoc who lectured with a thick Italian accent in a lilting, almost sing-song way: “The Etruscan potter realized the bowl from native clay.”
A Voyage Abroad, or: The Author’s Notes on a Trip Aboard the Victoria Clipper, Rendered into Rhyming Verse
by Andrew Orlebeke | Jan 21, 2018 | Washington
As bags are grabbed and knots are lost
And papers stowed away unread
The ship approaches final berth
The clouds behind, the sun ahead
Wyoming
by Gabe Gunnink | Jan 20, 2018 | Wyoming
My heart thunders as I pass the unglittering sign staking out the bucking bronco state: WELCOME TO WYOMING – FOREVER WEST. Here, I think, lies a land I’ve never traveled.
“What Will it Take for You to Listen?”
by Mary Margaret Healy | Jan 19, 2018 | Placeless
Breq has a lot in common with other sci-fi protagonists: she is impossibly good at everything she does, she has a super-human brain, and she is cagey and mysterious around everyone she meets.
The X-Files Season 11: Still Waiting on the World to End
by Ben DeVries | Jan 18, 2018 | Placeless
Season 11 aired its first episode on January 3 of this year and picks up, sort of, where its predecessor left off. I say sort of advisedly.
Everything is Fake. We’re All Going to Die.
by Tony Ditta | Jan 17, 2018 | Placeless
I’m over here with the cognitive capacity to panic endlessly about my impending doom, and I actually have to face that doom, while amoeba don’t even have the cognitive capacity to distinguish Bob the Builder from Dora the Explorer, and they basically get to live forever.
Tilt Shift
by Andrew Knot | Jan 16, 2018 | Cologne
But some of the biggest edits often go unnoticed, like the tilt shift, which wholly alters the picture’s presentation. I asked Geli whether these tactics are deceptive, especially to novices like me. Are your pictures presenting the truth?
Expectations vs. Reality
by Cassie Westrate | Jan 15, 2018 | Placeless
I look at my expectations from a year, or two, or ten ago and realize that I never would have been able to create a reality so bittersweet, so full of wonder, and drowning in grace.
Unaccounted Years
by Will Montei | Jan 14, 2018 | Placeless
They tumbled into my lap to watch Puffin Rock. Two on my knees, one on my crossed ankles. I’d have been little more than a chair were I not kissing their cheeks.
Reaching Back
by Catherine Kramer | Jan 13, 2018 | Placeless
It turns out I am not as hip to the jive as I used to be.
A Love Letter to Brandon Sanderson
by Elaine Schnabel | Jan 11, 2018 | Placeless
You bring people together and you bring nerds out of the woodwork. You encourage writers and you inspire dreamers.
This Was the Year of Living
by Jenna Griffin | Jan 10, 2018 | France, Netherlands, Romania
This was the year of living with my parents, with my best friends, with a stranger. This was the year of mint tea and French TV shows, of cooking for my friends and of touching the North Sea.
Buyer’s Remorse
by Bart Tocci | Jan 9, 2018 | Placeless
I bought a car again and when you buy a car you submit yourself to lies and deceit and interest rates.
The Expectant Father
by Paul Menn | Jan 8, 2018 | Placeless
To be an expectant father is to realize your own inadequacies.
Three-Alarm Fire
by Caroline (Higgins) Nyczak | Jan 7, 2018 | New York
The street is lined in red light
and girls with cats in cages.
Stand outside in the frigid, January air.
I’m Just Like You
by Josh deLacy | Jan 6, 2018 | Placeless
That’s why teachers are always angry, and why the most successful schools still employ good, old-fashioned paddlin’. Yell some sense into ‘em, preferably with personal insults and condemnations of their overall character.
Stories I Did Not Tell
by India Daniels | Jan 5, 2018 | India
He gave of himself, and I fear I failed to give back. I strove to be polite and unobtrusive and if not intelligent then at least not stupid. I fear I failed to let him know me, because I did not know myself.
Dairy Air
by Caitlin Gent | Jan 4, 2018 | Wisconsin
I had all but given up on existing in a sweet-smelling world for the foreseeable future, but then, I remembered something miraculous.
