Category: Creative Nonfiction

Lyric Essay: “When a man says less is more, it’s hard not to hear him (or, on figure painting)” by Sophie Paquette

He teaches us to apply paint in shapes. To recognize shadow and bend before limb. Our subject sprawls on the couch, arms hung along the cushion’s back. I paint the knee sticking out too far and the kimono slides down her leg, pulls her thigh into the light. I like this: leg hiked up like…
“Race Day,” an essay by Freda Epum

You board a bus and it seems as though there is a sea of Black people. If it weren’t for the fact that your skin is brown, your hair is curly, your eyes are black and almond, and you’ve got a nice ass (or so you’ve been told), you’d think there were no Black people in…
“Everything Was Cliché and Nothing Hurt,” an essay by Alaina Symanovich

Paint this scene: imbue it with optimistic lighting à la Glee and the stench of yesterday’s cafeteria surprise à la every public high school in America: fill in any gaps with some universal notion of teenage angst and low-grade depression. This particular story unfolds in Smalltown, Florida, a wart on the pallid swampland; maybe it…
“Marvel,” a lyric essay by Jennifer H. Fortin

Why does it bother me when others marvel at what I don’t find wondrous? It has to do with naiveté, with undue congratulations. I feel bad every second of every day. Or it has to do with false enticement: they are trying, via Marvel, to elicit a dramatic reaction. I can’t believe x! Marvel as…
“Notes from Toledo,” a micro-essay by Megan Martin

We got in a car and drove to Toledo. Toledo felt like bad news. I thought it was just your sister’s neighborhood where there were very few windows you could see through (bars, boards, broken glass, darkness), but those ghostly windows looked out at us everywhere we went. Their pit was raging at the door…
Flash Nonfiction: “Sportsball Commentary” by Ann Petroliunas

Pay attention, ref! The men in this basement have proven 1476 times that they possess the vocabulary to be outraged. The men in this basement scream obscenities at toy figurines on television screens sitting next to women who have other reasons for screaming. Our cries of outrage sound the same to this soccer game. The…
Essay: “Dinner with Trump and the Art of (Im)potent Rage” by Janet Mercel

My niece brought her boyfriend back east last summer to meet all of us. He was sweet and placid and quiet enough that I wasn’t sure he was paying attention until he’d had enough cocktails to loosen his lips. Later in the evening he told me how intimidated he’d been to be presented to the…
Essay: “The Mourning After” by Diane Payne

Hungover with sadness, shame, booze, and fatigue, I walked with the dogs to the park. This time of year, when it’s cold and the ground is wet, no one is at the park. But there he was: the man with the bike charging his phone at the picnic table pavilion. After exchanging morning greetings, I…
Essay: “Another Person Asks, When Did You Become a Feminist?” by Lindsay D’Andrea

“It comes with the job,” my mother says—meaning a possibility that your boss may touch you when you don’t expect him to—“So why all the fuss,” “take it as a compliment,” after all “boys will be boys,” etcetera. This is the woman who raised me. I wish I were not ashamed by her philosophy, wonder…