Category: Creative Nonfiction

New Haunted Passages Essay: “giving yrself flowers: an act of love” by Erick Sáenz

“That’s what experience for human is: an amplification and intensification of our sense of ourselves amidst other presences in the world”—Lyn Hejinian // every time we leave the apartment i tend to the camellia bush down the street, varying pink hues smashed against the concrete the streets are unkempt with them // the botanical gardencoffees…
Hybrid Essay for Haunted Passages: “Over at the Frankenstein Place” by Joanna Acevedo

Over the past two weeks, please list the items you have lost. As a teenager I knew how to scam my way into the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They still did it at the Chelsea Cinemas, which is closed now, and graffiti adorns its sad plywood window coverings. But this was…
“Il Divino”: A Hybrid Travelogue by Brandi George

And there was Michelangelo, the famous Renaissance painter who I worshipped as a child, writing his name over and over on the pages of my notebook, as if the meaning of life was there in the syllables: Michelangelo Michelangelo Michelangelo Mich-el-ang-el-o I grew up on a farm, and the only books I had access to…
New Side A Nonfiction Essay: “Butt Stuff” by Florence Fishburne

Butt Stuff —for Willy Woodcock THE BEGINNING: MEETING W SPD (shits per day): 4-5 I might’ve been wiping my ass and watching a film from the Criterion Collection on my phone when I first matched with him. W. That’s not how they all start. There are others. But he was special. Is. Thin eyebrows that…
Haunted Passages Nonfiction: “Leap” by Karen Crawford

It was a number you didn’t want to celebrate, but of course, I surprised you. A room at the “castle on the hill” with its California bungalows, French-style turrets, and an old school New York Park Avenue vibe. It was the infamous penthouse suite 54. It was famous people undercover. It was too much champagne.…
Three Emotive Essays by Sandra Simonds

Scientists Recognize 27 Emotions and One of Them Is… Confusion No one knows the difference between prose and poetry and if someone says they do, send them to my living room. I sat in Mary Ruefle and Michael Burkard’s living room. Mary handed me a glass of green tea, told a strange history. Once, she…
Nonfiction for Bad Survivalist: “Unruly Roots” by Morgan Rose-Marie

I’ve tried to make this call four or five times this week. Now that my mother is finally on the other end, I find myself wishing I were once again hearing her voicemail greeting instead. Growing up, when I answered the house phone, the caller would inevitably launch into conversation. “I’m Morgan,” I would interrupt.…
Haunted Passages Nonfiction: “Ghost Beach” by Asha Dore

Every Friday after Grief Group, Jen took me on blind dates. The first two dates had been a boring bust, watching dudes light up bowls of bad weed in their parents’ basement. “Sophomores are so immature,” Jen said, passing me a joint. I sat in the passenger seat of her ancient 4Runner, parked in front…
New Travel Nonfiction: “To the Burmese Monks Who Asked Why My Hair Was Cut Short” by Lindsey Danis

You were not the first monks I met in Thailand, but you were the only ones I bowed to with both hands pressed together at the chin to demonstrate respect. You were two together and we were together, two married women passing for straight, but you wondered about that in the way you eyed my…