At 7:40am, the streets of downtown Charlottesville are eerily quiet. If not for the barricades, it would be hard to believe these streets will soon teem with people: busloads of Nazis come for the Unite the Right […]

My second novel, Best Intentions, is a medical thriller that falls solidly between Write-What-You-Know, a form of untaxing research I heartily recommend, and Write-What-You-Worry-About, a selfless act of spreading […]

Once a decade, the European cities of Venice, Kassel, and Munster form a trifecta for the contemporary art world. There’s the every-two-year Biennale in that glorious jewel on the Adriatic.

And a mammoth s […]

Beatitude
 
It is winter. It is cold.
Meek sky offers no color.
Hardwood skeletons assemble
along the treeline. Roots knuckle up
through blizzard’s encumbrance, grasping at sunrise.

Rhododendrons sa […]

“While you’re not doing anything—again, today,” Manda said, “you can get estimates on having that tree cut down.”

Ben rolled over and propped himself against the mahogany headboard. He pushed a strand of g […]

The Bear’s Back
 
Last night I dreamt of a bear
who carries us through the forest on his back.
He goes through the mud,
we cling to his fur,
he wants to bury us
in a storyteller’s thro […]

by Mary Carroll-Hackett
 

I move too fast. Always have. I talk fast, walk fast, read quickly, even had to be taught as a child to slow down while eating, Mama saying things like It’s not a race, Mary, or You […]

       by Laura Marello

Many people knew him better and longer. Many can say more articulate things about his work. I always loved him so much. I remember many details of our ten months at the Fine A […]

When I was in college I took a child development class with a lab, complete with Osh Kosh B’Gosh clad tots. We studied how they picked up language to convey meaning.

It was fascinating.

I r […]

Who knew milk cartons had gables? ‘Embossed on gable’ said the fine print, explaining where to find the identifying information, in case of what, a recall? Dottie wondered. Does half-and-half get rec […]

Full Snow Moon
 
Fat and slow, she climbs the eastern sky
like an old woman climbs stairs,
holding onto tree branches and stars
to make her way to February’s zenith.
She rises on time, a beacon fully se […]

Before there were Google maps, cable travel channels and live streaming from every corner of the Internet, there were slides, those posh cousins of snapshots. The tiny film inside a cardboard frame only reveals […]

I talk to dead people. Oh, don’t get worried. It’s not like they talk back. Although, there was that time…

What I’m saying is that I have some graves that are my favorite haunts. (And just to be absol […]

In a northern portion of the Midwest, on a night of light snow, during the few minutes just before and after ten o’clock, some things happened. They occurred along a route on which a southbound train traveled t […]

Agnostic
 
In the bath a spider crawls along the ledge.
It’s tiny enough that it doesn’t scare
this arachnophobe. Isn’t that the way
fear works, the smaller the threat the less
a reason to run? Unlike the […]

I wrote these poems to capture and preserve real events. They depict shifts from isolation and loss to connection and love—the dance of relationships in unexpected places, with unexpected dance pa […]

Common Stingray
 
                  Dasyatis pastinaca

In the infinite silence
   of her velvety skin, she roams
         through moon water at night,

scours coastal shallows, glides
   around th […]

I recognize that I may be a tad more sensitive to the prospect of police state behavior than the average Jo but I come by this extra helping of unease naturally. Because of his liberal politics my dad, Marcus […]