Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. We are not handed a guide at birth entitled Fail-proof Steps to Living This Life. As such, I’ve lived most of my life through a lot of trial and error—heavy on the error side. I’ve also learned that sometimes I just have to take the next right step and try not to run the entire marathon at once. I’m getting ok with that practice. There is a source that I go to often for life advice. Poet Mary Oliver never fails to enlighten me or ease my weariness. She … Continue reading Taking the Right Step by Cheryl Traylor→
Off to my left the dark current of the Hudson River rushed downstream at 65 mph, a magnificent sight, but at the moment my mind was concentrating on the tail lights bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic in front of me. I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, an anonymous group of motorcycle enthusiasts who met on summer evenings on Eighth Street in Greenwich Village to ride out together. Being, more or less, one of the regulars, but never the leader, I would hang around, chatting and ogling the passing chicks, … Continue reading Between Lanes by Stephen Poleskie→
Jessie had worked at Meyers Auditorium for six years, by then. When she had started during her fourth year in college (it took five to finish her social sciences degree), she hadn’t planned to stay that long. It had just been a good arrangement. The job paid better than others on campus. She controlled her own schedule because crew members picked which shows they worked. But in any case, she had stayed. She didn’t regret it. She liked how physical the work was. There was equipment to push, pull, and carry. Ladders to clamber up. … Continue reading After the Magician by Stephanie Milner→
Once upon a time, there was a woman who wanted to have a baby. Or rather, this woman, named Jane, didn’t particularly care whether she had a baby at the time this story takes place, but her husband, a good, solid man named Jack, felt it was time for the two of them to have a baby, and since she often felt his wishes ought to be hers as well, she also thought it must be time. Every Sunday, the two of them would trudge from their tiny little apartment to church, where they would … Continue reading White by Holly Day→
First off, I’m just going to put right out there that I have been known to watch live courtroom TV like it’s a job, attending to whatever case is being broadcast into my living room as if auditioning for a seat as an alternate. I can opine about guilt, innocence and the social context affecting a legal outcome with (possibly oversized) confidence. I especially enjoy learning the backstories (gossip) about the various participants. Defendants, attorneys, bloggers and turf-guarding journalists. They’re all fascinating. (In another life I might’ve been a court reporter.) Quick aside: I recently … Continue reading Lowcountry Tragedy by Erika Raskin→
I once wrote a piece for Publisher’s Weekly about how even people who are terminally disorganized can craft novels. I offered a five-step alternative to the (impossible) task of manufacturing a pre-writing blueprint. Of these: one-sentence plot description writing what you know asking what if retrofitting action and, creating three-dimensional characters It is the final that is most crucial. In order for your narrative to take off, your cast needs to be sketched out (with well-rounded backstories that include things like the meaning of hidden tattoos, food allergies, wardrobe choices, cat or dog preference, conversational … Continue reading Put Some Meat On Their Bones by Erika Raskin→
Fifteen years ago, I knew that moving to the Midwest would be a kind of culture shock. I knew it because I googled “Regional Food of Michigan” and the first thing that came up was “cereal.” But I didn’t know then what I know now, that Midwestern Nice was going to be the real shock. I always felt shy growing up on Long Island. Part of that shyness was that I was an outsider from the start. We started our lives as a family in Palo Alto, Calif., where I was born at Stanford University … Continue reading Culture Shock by Rachel Lutwick-Deaner→
Between the two American holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, it seems appropriate to write about one aspect of both: food. Traditionally the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of a successful, or at least adequate, harvest with the hope that such would carry the Pilgrims through the hard winter to come. Occasions for such thoughts, no doubt, are ancient and center around family and tribe sustainability. An official thanksgiving holiday was not celebrated until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared one, a few hundred years after the “first” Thanksgiving in 1621. We collectively count the blessings … Continue reading Beware the Feast by Fred Wilbur→
I found my calling on a bleak Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1958, standing at the edge of a fetid swamp, questioning why bad things happened to little children. It was the day four-year-old Billy Flynn disappeared. I was nine at the time, living in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with my mother and grandmother, in the kind of friendly neighborhood that was pretty common back then. That afternoon had started innocently enough, in the Flynns’ backyard, right after Halloween. Decked out in Stetson hats and feathers, a bunch of us boys were playing Cowboys … Continue reading Missing by Ruth Spack→
Was I crazy to want to attend two different public events on a single hot summer’s day? Maybe, but after two years of the Covid pandemic, there were a couple of Fourth of July events I really wanted to attend. The first was two events in one: the July Fourth Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony at Monticello, which is the historic home of President Thomas Jefferson, located just outside of Charlottesville. And this year, I actually knew someone who was taking the oath of citizenship, a woman who goes to the same church we … Continue reading A Special Day by Miles Fowler→
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