Rich H. Kenney, Jr. is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2017 Essay/Memoir contest.

In the summer of 1960, my father got high and I held the ladder. “All you have to do,” he told me, “is […]

Anne Carson is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2017 Essay/Memoir contest.

It had just snowed a heavy snow, and my mother picked us up early from school. The roads were not that scary or […]

Alex Joyner is the 1st place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2017 Essay/Memoir contest.

Robert E. flippin’ Lee’s church pew. Is there any more compromised bench in all of Christendom? It occupies some mid […]

She was a bully, a backer, a stinker, a treasure. She was a finder of fault and forte, folly and facility. She was the picture of rigor and push and impeccability, her visage stern and stately and a dead-ringer […]

I was standing in the stacks of the Sutro Library in San Francisco, following a lead on a case I was working. I was not a private detective, but I had aspirations to be one, and my sister-in-law wanted me to find […]

I understood the world around me on Promise Road. I felt at home on the edge of the rolling valley, looking out at the distant mountain range. I learned to fight creeping Charlie, pigweed and cheat grass with […]

The city’s Central district is different in the early morning, just after sunlight usually appears: near empty streets, no black skirt suits, few voices. Today, damp bundles just delivered to the ne […]

They are called Quakers because the spirit, which is in all beings, begins to move and demands a voice. They quake where they sit, on their plain wooden benches, until that which is in their hearts is spoken […]

In his slightly madcap, secretly serious, mystery novel, I Shot the Buddha, Colin Cotterill, on the very first page, describes three types of “cinematic plot devices” that his protagonists find annoying: coi […]

When I was younger I prayed that if I had to get sick, I’d get a movie star illness—one with a color, ribbon, and celebrity spokespersons. It’s not that I wanted to be ill, but in my family broke-down-body lore […]

Today, as I write this, December 11, 2016, is National Noodle Ring Day. What, again? you say. So soon? But that’s how the holy days are, aren’t they, always upon us, or so it seems. I’m reminded of a won […]

Sweet Tarts

Tía Mimí was lumpy. My tía Esther was fat. My father’s two sisters never married.

“You’ll grow up to be old maids like your aunts,” mami sang to Patricia and me.

“Julita doesn’t appr […]

I wrote to Paul, but a response was not received. The second time I enclosed adequate British postage, thinking the postage might my enhance chances. It wasn’t as though I was asking for a grant or a personal v […]

Monday, October 10, is (or was, depending when you’re reading this) Columbus Day—in case you were wondering why there was no mail. Columbus Day, recently voted National Holiday Mostly Likely to be Abandoned i […]

Sitting on my desk right now, asking for attention more ardently than any of the other chores I ought to be doing—such as my own writing, or, for example, this blog—are these two beautiful books of poetry. The […]

We lived in a very small town on Eastern Long Island, closer to duck and potato farms than New York City. But my parents believed that it was important to see beyond the local environment and travel was one of the […]

I’ve never seen my father cry. This is surprising because he’s not one of those “boys don’t cry” sorts and never scolded us for tears. With four small boys running around the house, he saw ours almost daily as […]

It was a fall day, not cold but cool… a brisk and breezy day, full of that feeling you have when a peppermint melts in your mouth and your nose suddenly wakes up. Except this feeling affects your entire body, […]

Annette Boushey Holland is the 1st place winner winner of Streetlight’s 2016 essay/memoir contest.

My last year of elementary school, at the end of the 50s, was also the end of my family’s life in Washington D […]

Jennifer Cox is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2016 essay/memoir contest.
Until I was six I was loud and my eyes lit up and family was everyone everywhere. Then my cousin Jeffrey died, and it took a year f […]