Karol Lagodzki

  • I spent four days and nights smashed against a bus window in transit to my first husband’s family reunion half nauseous from breathing in the diesel fumes and the aroma of the chemical toilet a few feet behind u […]

  • Trudy wrote a new post 6 years, 9 months ago

    “We’re walking to the midnight service?” my daughter asked. “With all the hooligans out there.”

    It was Christmas Eve. I looked out the window onto the streets of our Eastern Shore town. A mostly full moon moved […]

  • Have you ever used virtual reality goggles to watch a movie? Imagine that the film starts off in an African village. Ahead of you, you see a hut and can almost smell the smoke rising from a campfire. You hear […]

  • On the third visit, they kicked his stomach and broke his thumbs. The bones cracked like an electrical charge shooting through his entire body, exiting via his skull, as if everything he knew, everything he […]

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    Both the Irish and Ukrainian/Russian sides of my family settled in Allegheny County, and the men worked in the steel mills and coal mines. My mother got on a bus one day and moved to central Ohio. She […]

  • A few years back, a new neighbor called. “Katie, there’s an old man leaning against my front wall, should I call the police?”

    I pulled my window up and leaned out to look, just two houses over. There was Paul, […]

  • “You can get a wax.” She rubs the stubbly black fuzz on my calves, nodding. “A little long.”

    “Yeah, I know. It’s been cold.” I feel the need to defend myself to the woman painting my toenails. Suddenly my m […]

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    I grew up in Southern California with a darkroom in my garage. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all photographers. As a child I didn’t spend much time with photography, even though I wa […]

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    Body painted women. Haitian orphans. Black Elvis. Models for hip-hop and Votre Nom. The homeless. A budding coquette in the summer sun.

    These are but a few of the fascinating faces caught in telling […]

  • Priscilla, lovely writing. We’re enjoying Seattle but I miss you and all my VA friends!

  • Erika Raskin wrote a new post 7 years ago

    It was a sticky, overcast August day in the Connecticut River Valley, and it was going to be a heavy one.

    Already, at 9:00 in the morning, Ed was poking his head into a series of little rooms upstairs in […]

  • Elizabeth Howard wrote a new post 7 years ago

    Shoes is the story of the artist’s aging father who needed to give up a good pair of shoes because they no longer offered enough support. Harris inked the soles of these shoes and walked in them to make p […]

  • Erika Raskin wrote a new post 7 years ago

    The quarterly meeting of Streetlight’s editorial staff had just ended. It was a particularly uplifting one. It’s incredibly gratifying to be part of a team that is committed to ushering art into the world. We tac […]

  • Elizabeth Howard wrote a new post 7 years ago

     

    Collage has always been at the center of my creative work. I began by accident or twist of fate, with a pile of magazines and a pair of little pink scissors. A fun project to do something crafty turned […]

  • Trudy wrote a new post 7 years, 1 month ago

    Sometimes, modern life feels dried out and far away from what nourishes. In our chase to connect, we climb ladders that promise better tomorrows and disconnect from what feels good under our feet. We forget the […]

  • Doris said, “Seems like it might snow. First of the season.”

    She turned from where she stood in front of the kitchen window and looked at Martin. He was sitting at the table holding a nearly full glass of mil […]

  • Last month, as we celebrated our daughter’s 17th birthday, it struck me that we would enjoy only one more birthday celebration together as a family unit before she heads off to college. Her birthday falls in O […]

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    I probably started working towards becoming an artist in middle school in Charlottesville. I made little comics to sell to my friends and I’d fill up my homework and test sheets with doodles in the […]

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    The familiar constriction arose in her chest. She followed the dark echoes of her husband’s steps; his gait sober as cold coffee. Heel, toe. March. She giggled at the image of her husband as a soldier. Hi […]

  • What a loving tribute to Ann and a “memento mori”
    for us all.
    Thank you.

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