I first read Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” when I was in college. Five American Poets was the course, taught by a ruddy-faced Midwestern professor who began class by reading aloud a poem, often reciting it from m […]

As a child, one of the most thrilling things to me was the story my father told about how he, at the age of ten, first encountered Indians on a dusty road near the Flandreau Santee Indian Reservation in South […]

2nd place winner of the Streetlight 2017 Poetry Contest

My Grandmother Kills a Chicken
 
The hen house her grocery,
she strode the aisles of cluck,
straw, and feathers for eggs
reaching under each bird […]

1st place winner of the Streetlight 2017 Poetry Contest

Thoor Ballylee
Home of W.B. Yeats
Massive stone, empty air, the river’s
cool breath, a space the poet enters.
Image stacked upon image reveals
his w […]

3rd place winner of the Streetlight 2017 Poetry Contest

Witness
 
It seemed an unlikely spot for a prophet, the annual library book sale
in a dim warehouse on a summer day, but there she was,
rocking side […]

We were the ones who fell between the cracks in the social order. We loathed the popular kids—the jocks, cheerleaders, and rich kids. We pitied the stoners and the nerds. To all of them, we were invisible, s […]

I did the same thing in the first two minutes upon meeting her for the first time that I did while sitting with a friend of more than 20 years two days before. I cried. I felt humbled and felt the tears well up, […]

This past week I had an unusual experience in a memoir class. Several of us had turned in an excerpt to be critiqued during class. The workshop leader asked another writer to read my excerpt aloud. We were not to […]

She felt the first loose tooth at 5am on Tuesday. A back tooth on the lower left side, her wisdom tooth? She felt it the moment she woke up, lying in bed while the monitor screamed in her ear.

She […]

Writing a story from a foreign or external perspective offers not only the reward of expanding your own awareness about people but can also lead to empathy for others that you may not have had before. To write […]

The squeaky snow in Indiana reminds me of growing up in Poland. So does the temperature, seven degrees Fahrenheit. I’m glad it’s not seventy and sunny. Better days for sitting down and writing rarely come […]

Full disclosure: I didn’t ask Erika Raskin* to be this month’s interviewee until after she had decided on the story I had submitted. That being said, once she had reached her decision (a yes, by the way!), I […]

The Blue Shirt
As the doors close on 2016 we may find ourselves casting a backward glance, not only on the past year but back over our entire life as well, especially if we’ve reached a certain age. For many of u […]

Mount Fuji
 
My friend always wanted to see the mountain
with its eternal snow, but she never
crossed the ocean to Japan. Instead,
she bought a small reproduction
of Hokusai’s “Boy Viewing Mount Fuji […]

Dazzling Dinoflagellates
 
We gather when the moon is hidden
in earth shadow, stand in a group to hear facts,
take advice, don life jackets that cover our lungs,
our hearts. We drive toward a cove at […]

The dogs at Chicago’s Belly Shack are the best. In the bare, post-industrial setting of this diner beneath the rumbling tracks of the L, you can get a Belly Dog loaded with egg noodles and pickled green papaya. A […]

Art History
 
“A book ‘manuscript’ should be understood as a form of sacred space: a temple in microcosm, not only imbued with divine presence but also layered with the memories of many generations of us […]

After I attended the Midwest Writers Workshop this summer, I made a vow to write about it. I had gone to other writing conferences, but this one felt different. Warmer, helpful. Permanent. As a dutiful outreach […]