REQUIEM FOR ONE TUBA Photo Courtesy of Nathan Bingler This short story was published by the Virginia Quarterly Review. REQUIEM IN B Flat MAJOR FOR ONE TUBA The old lady stood so close I felt her hot breath on my neck. Her cramped apartment was filled to overflowing: moving boxes stacked on end, brass […]
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TRIAGEA SHORT STORY Photo Courtesy of Daniel Ramierez My short story, TRIAGE, won first place in THE HOOK fiction contest. You can read it below. TRIAGE Thursday Night (Emma) Upstairs in bed, Emma hears the front door creak. She stiffens. It’s Alex coming in late. She listens to him open the refrigerator. Something tumbles
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HOLDING VIGIL:FOSTER CARE Photo Courtesy of Atharva Tulsi 0:00 / 0:00 Holding Vigil One result of the overturn of Roe v. Wade will be that many more children will be entering foster care, a system that is already underfunded and overwhelmed. Years ago, at my first job out of college, I saw firsthand how a
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DISPLACED Photo Courtesy of Farid Ershad 0:00 / 0:00 Displaced Mid-August last year, when Fatema* answered her cell phone, she heard her sister Shaima’s frantic voice, “I’m at the airport. Can you bring me my passport right now?” Not a simple request. On a normal day, it would have been dangerous for Fatema, who was
The Kindness of Strangers seems to have slipped into existence with few people noticing. Except for a couple savage reviews, you won’t see much about the film online. The movie was released in December 2019, just before Covid kneecapped the world. Between that and the Rotten Tomato score of 31%, I don’t think it has
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JACK’S GRANNYA STORY FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES 0:00 / 0:00 Jack's Granny Some grannies knit and some grannies bake bread. But Jack’s granny plays the banjo. Jack’s Granny settled into her rickety rocking chair and began to fiddle with the tuning pegs on her banjo. Both Jack and his granny could hear excited
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MY MONTICELLOBOOK REVIEW Jocelyn Johnson’s novella, My Monticello, is a soul-nourishing story that begins on a spring night in the near-future after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017. White nationalists have returned to town. They are burning down houses and brutally attacking people of color. Da’ Naisha Love, a descendant of Thomas
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ESCALATING Photo Courtsey of Derek Story 0:00 / 0:00 Escalating I’m not a fan of escalators. Right after our third son was born, my children and I ventured to a shopping mall in Louisville, Kentucky. We wound up on a steep escalator. I held my hefty infant on one arm and an umbrella stroller in
A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION Photo Courtesy of TR Photography 0:00 / 0:00 A Step in the Right Direction Lemony Snicket says, “There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational—or in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t.” Many of my fears make no sense. On the other hand, there
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BANDITSMOVIE REVIEW My mother broke her arm last week and is now staying with us. As you might imagine, it has been a challenging few days, so we decided to watch a movie last night. Finding the right film is always tricky. Mom is no fan of bad language, violence, angst, subtitles and you can
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