The following is a conversation with Karin Cecile Davidson, whose first novel, Sybelia Drive, is being published this fall by Braddock Avenue Books (October 6th).
Sybelia Drive is a Vietnam-era novel that tells […]

Toward the evening of the night I thought my mother was dying, the aide, who stayed with mom during the day, told me mom had been asleep for twenty-four hours and would not wake up. She sent me a picture of my […]

Mary Alice Hostetter is an Honorable Mention in Streetlight Magazine’s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest
The first thing I noticed was the sign. My mother and I were driving back from getting corn meal at the mill, and […]

When we held our essay/memoir contest last spring, we had such a wealth of wonderful entries, it was very hard to pick the winners. I think we did a good job—certainly the best we could—but in the process we […]

Billie Hinton is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest
I’m holding the reins of a twelve-hand half-Shetland pony when I get the call. My daughter hops into the saddle, I r […]

Amy Stonestrom is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest
A strange February morning, gray sky lined with tangerine. Ten degrees. From my spot in the front seat, bursts of flame […]

Richard Key is the 1st place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest
Honeybees are swarming outside my home office under the eaves of the roofline. I would say they are hovering like tiny […]

When self-isolation measures were first enacted, five-year-old Vivian seemed excited about the whole thing. A new experience, unique to this time and place. She was playing with her mom, she yelled from her porch, […]

The visit was long overdue. At my wife Margie’s suggestion, I decided to do something about it.

So, on a summer day that was forehead-dripping hot with a steely blue sky, the two of us strolled in shorts and s […]

Daniel and I had done a lot of preparation for labor, I thought, but I never considered that it would start during the night.

I had pictured it many times and it was exclusively a daytime event. In fact, it […]

Not long ago, I walked along a rustic road that wound its way through a thickly forested area, taking in the sounds and sights of nature. Eventually the growth of trees thinned out and I came upon a somewhat […]

Just as we were hunkering down in the midst of this global emergency, we received the last dozen or so entries for the 2020 Streetlight Essay/Memoir contest. That was a happy distraction! And this is too.

None […]

The day before I turned 40, a Sunday toward the end of the merry month, we went for a drive from our home in West Hartford to the town of Litchfield, Connecticut. I was at the wheel, my wife navigating, our […]

I remember the moment I knew my grandmother’s mind was slipping away.

My cousin leaned in to give her a kiss and say goodnight. “Goodnight, Dahh-ling,” she replied as only she could, and then, to no one in pa […]

The other day I heard somebody use the phrase, “the dead of winter,” and I thought, wow, it surely is. Punxsutawney Phil to the contrary—nor yet the strangely benign weather we’ve been having here in central […]

Not until age seventy did I recall a place I’d never been—the Teenage Fair. Launched in 1961, it became a so-called “mini world’s fair for teenagers” which featured, according to one of its newspaper ads, a “b […]

The city of my birth, as seen from above, is a ragged landscape of canyons. Highrises, lowrises, the steeple of an old brick church. Streams of yellow taxicabs where forests of hickory and chestnut once grew. To […]

Like most people, I have done things that I wish I had not done, but it seems rare that something I am sorry I did is linked inextricably to something else I am glad to have done.

Growing up in a middle-class […]

The New Year’s Eve party was near Times Square in the building then housing Show World Center. You sat on my friends’ laps and mine inquiring about our salaries. John had the features of a Jones Beach […]

There’s a scuba certification center in the middle of the desert, promising a deep heated pool. There’s a billboard with a picture of an elderly couple smiling for the camera, the woman wrapping her arms aro […]