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Essays

Abstract painting.

Exhaustion and Rest: Motherhood and Creativity

I have learned to value those things—the jugs and the kettles, the infant sunscreen.

Essays, Literary Reflections | November /December 2020 | By Victoria Livingstone


Let Grace Lead

My anxiety is high as I wait for my school district to decide about fall. I wait even though I have already decided my kids will not go back in person.

Essays, Literary Reflections | September/ October 2020 | By Jacey Rogel


The Good-enough Mother

It was the moment my daughter refused to collude, wanting instead to strike out on her own, no matter what the consequences.

Essays, Literary Reflections | September/ October 2020 | By Shonac Young


Patrice Puig

Bouncing off Rock Bottom

For the first time in my life, I was not looking outside of myself for validation. I wasn’t troubled by anyone else’s opinion about who I was, or what I…

Essays, Literary Reflections | May 2020 | By Deborah Serra


Anton Shuvalov

Tornado Drill Position

It took months of distance to give myself permission to shape the experience into words. To own the right to my story—the story of my ordinary heart, scarred from decades-old…

Essays, Literary Reflections | March 2020 | By Christie O. Tate


Milada Vigerova

At the Kitchen Table Where Miracles Happen

Although there is no singular defining reason why one experiences writing as meaningful or fulfilling, it surely grants us the unique chance to pry ourselves open on the page, bleed…

Essays, Literary Reflections | March 2020 | By Odeta Xheka


Natalya Letunova

Reflections of a Mother Who Writes to Heal

I cannot imagine what would have become of me or my story if I were not able to capture it in writing. My children and children’s children will be able…

Essays, Literary Reflections | January 2020 | By T. Pearl Joynz


Travis Bara

Sand Stories

Toby sometimes seems like an interruption, a reminder that I never can go back to who I’ve been before, making me fear that I’ll never finish these stories based on…

Essays, Literary Reflections | January 2020 | By Rachel Sturges


Meredith Porretta

Haunted:
The Gothic Motherhoods of Shirley Jackson and Diane Arbus

Jackson’s demons were clearly bigger and more terrifying than the conventional ones of balancing writing and childrearing. Yet she managed to give space and import to those smaller moments of…

Essays, Literary Reflections | November 2019 | By Eileen McGinnis


Laura Fuhrman

The Last Bedtime Story

But over the last year or so, no matter how engaging the book, I could never get through more than two or three pages before he’d decide that was enough.

Essays, Literary Reflections | November 2019 | By Ruth Dawkins


Meredith Porretta

Writing from a Pile of Shoes: Chronic Illness, Kids, and Creation

I had driving questions: How much caregiving can any one woman do without breaking down? Why do women seem so often to be the caregivers? What becomes of us when…

Essays, Literary Reflections | November 2019 | By Kathryn Trueblood


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