Dear writing one,

There will come a day when you will stop writing, for no good reason. There will be no drama, no single event that sinks your writing heels into the ground. You will come home from a writing […]

She was four-foot-something, ancient, squat, and elegant. I assumed she was Russian, though I only ever heard her speak once. She was born before there was such a thing as the Warsaw Pact, before the Cold War, […]

Ferment
 
Orchard in February.
Branches, matted as hair, litter the rows after pruning.
Soil, strewn with old fruitfall,
soaks in last season’s rancid sun
seeped from these gnawed globes:
Ambrosias, Au […]

Since changing paths on my photographic journey about three years ago, I continue to find great excitement and inspiration—as well as endless thematic possibilities—while experimenting with light painting tec […]

Swimming in Akumal
 
You could learn to live here
without ever measuring time
in linear seconds or distance
in the miles we journey.
Everything here is cyclical
and circular like the half moon
bay we […]

My granny Sally, who had a pillow-like soul (except for when she was playing gin rummy and this badass alter-ego would jump out and stomp the competition) used to warn my siblings and me to wash our […]

Sorrow
 
Sometimes I think I own sorrow
like the man who parades his macaw
up and down the shopping street,
shit on his back, smiling. The bird
is sweet and talkative, but
his wings are clipped. Sorrow […]

Of all the scenes I could replay to rewrite or undo, one I go back to one again and again.

It’s the end of my therapy session and I sit up and slip into my shoes, pick up my purse, when Dr. Bob asks to speak w […]

You’ve gotten over the idea that writing poetry is only for strange people who carry around moleskin notebooks with ribbon bookmarks. You may have even admitted to people you’ve met in airports, knowing you will […]

When the bus drops Diana off in the afternoon, her mother is still at work. She lets herself into the silent, spotless apartment, a large box of Oreo cookies and two bags of Mounds in her embrace.

Dropping […]

Podcast: A young woman faces the most difficult of decisions.

A short story performed by Jennifer Sims.

Read the story online: No Matter What by Tracey Levine

On the face of it, it wouldn’t seem to be a match. Beat writers and military cadets. But Gordon Ball, Allen Ginsburg’s farm manager, taught Beat Generation writers to cadets at Virginia Military Institute for 26 […]

First Dog: A Love Song
 
You didn’t even want it. You said it was much too nervous,
inappropriate for us who had never owned a dog,
and wrong for our cold climate. It would have to wear a sweater,
we would be […]

For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed being a creative person. I’ve occasionally been labeled “artsy-fartsy” or some similarly dismissive phrase. And I’ve struck back and used my own pejorative, the phrase […]

Reno and Smiley in Verona
 
Walking not far from Juliet’s graffitied house,
a window gives its music to the alley below—
Appalachian spring tripping on love.
I hear I Wouldn’t Change You if I Could. […]

Thirteen is a hellish year. I don’t understand why evolution didn’t just let us skip from twelve straight to fourteen. Twelve is really cool. You’re a sixth grader in grammar school (as they called it when I was a […]

The first fan fiction I ever wrote was inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the television series created by Joss Whedon about a blonde superhero who turns the tables by killing vampires instead of being killed […]

From Ice and Dust
 
All summer long, a comet
streaks, star blown and cold,
as I walk, hollow boned
thin ribbed, a scarecrow loosed

upon the night, trailing cotton.
How elastic the hands once,
thick with […]