A Taxonomy of Unbecoming: Notes Toward a Theory of Female Disappearance Item 1: The voice. First to go. Not all at once—gradually, like water finding its level. She learns to modulate, to soften, to make herself heard without being loud, to be loud without being threatening, to be threatening without being punished. By the end,… Read More A Taxonomy of Unbecoming: Notes Toward a Theory of Female Disappearance ~ essay by Ghazifa Bashir

Angel Ranch after Las Poquianchis, by Francisco Corzas (Mexico) 1966 “Last week, in a San Francisco del Rincón courtroom … the (Gonzalez) sisters were found guilty of first-degree murder, white slavery and assorted other crimes and sentenced to the maximum penalty under Mexican law: 40 years in prison.” Time Magazine, October 30, 1964   Catalina, small, sweet,… Read More Angel Ranch ~ creative nonfiction by Lorette C. Luzajic

An extended metaphor to explore the uneven feelings associated with beginning psychotherapy. When I move into the house, the foundation is wonky. I know for sure because I roll an empty wine bottle down the hardwoods, and even with the friction of the area rug, the bottle cruises, gains momentum. There are hills and valleys… Read More My Brain is a Shifting Foundation ~ creative nonfiction by Kaci Neves

Experiential Ecotone: Hashimoto’s Disease & Gestational Diabetes Something (un)natural happened. After almost twenty long years, I still want answers. I think I spent the first decade in denial. The first decade I spent raising other children. But around 2013, when I first moved to Las Vegas, I wanted to remember. I wanted to remember better,… Read More Experiential Ecotone: Hashimoto’s Disease & Gestational Diabetes ~ creative nonfiction by Court Harler

I I see a land that looks like another world. There is agave and saguaro cactus and desert marigold, all of it brown and gold and dripping silver. The silver is the sun’s light and it bathes a city, pooling like water on waterless highways and dripping from statues of horses that have roamed the… Read More Statues of Horses Seen from the Sky ~ creative nonfiction by Karen Chaffee

There are reasons for recurring dreams, he says. My therapist. He holds the keys to the inside of my head, but he won’t use them. He expects me to manage this alone, with the butter knife I use as a screwdriver. The only tool I ever had. He lists the reasons—anxiety due to unmet needs,… Read More All the Colors of Red ~ creative nonfiction by Mollie McLean

A man named Yeah chose the daisy box for me. I am already assuming too much. I imagine that Yeah is a man, and that he pronounces “Yeah” the way I do. I believe we all pronounce “Yeah” the same way underground. But Yeah’s mouth may stretch it, bubble gum pink across three syllables or… Read More Yeah ~ creative nonfiction by Angela Townsend

The Hoyer Lift is a medical device designed to facilitate in the movement of the elderly or movement-impaired. Using it, a skilled health-care worker can transfer a patient from wheelchair to bed in less than sixty seconds. The rubberized plates at the base of the lift platform allow a degree of personal dignity – with… Read More The Hoyer Lift ~ creative nonfiction by Zary Fekete

“In various parts of Missouri, one hears the story of a great hole in the ground, where hunters have heard strange sounds and smelled unusual odors. Some say the Devil lives in that hole …”  –Missouri Magic and Folklore by Randolph Vance, 1947   Once upon a time, as absurd as it sounds, the King… Read More Expedition ~ creative nonfiction by Nancy Bell

I was lost, hurrying down an endless corridor to find my classroom, clutching books and a folder of notes. I realized they were the wrong books, the wrong notes, and I was in the wrong building. Class was about to start. Could I make it in time? Could I wing it without notes? I was… Read More A Dress with Pockets, or Mediterranean Vistas ~ creative nonfiction by Jacqueline Doyle

There’s a place where my mind goes to attenuate. I can call it “Paris,” because that’s what exchange students call it when they’re traveling through its metro stations. They can get all the way out to the country and its terrifying rural confectioners, before they know they’ve left the city. I’ve seen them looking purposeful,… Read More Precedence ~ creative nonfiction by Kathryn Pratt Russell

I’m driving to my job at the university, running a little late, and I see two guys carrying a toilet into Taco Bell. They’re crouched over like it’s kind of heavy, one’s got the door propped open with his shoulder, getting the toilet through the entrance looks awkward. So maybe Taco Bell is getting a… Read More Two Guys Carrying a Toilet Into Taco Bell ~ essay by Jacqueline Doyle

I moved into an apartment across the country to regain the independence I felt I had lost; it took me two days of living alone to understand that now is not the time for independence. I sleep in my friend’s unoccupied room because it feels better than admitting the tiny one next to it is… Read More Amidst the Chaos ~ pandemic essay by Kelsey Allen

The evil wizard in Gogol’s story “A Terrible Revenge” struggles with his mad daughter, trying to take away the knife she holds and, in the process, kills her. This climax—coming after the wizard murders her Cossack husband, demands that she “marry” (i.e., have sex with) him, murders her infant son, his grandchild, and then she… Read More Everything Is Connected ~ essay by John Talbird

Well, I really mean cannibalizer. A poetry colleague/friend just emailed that, in her opinion, I cannibalize my work. She meant it as a criticism. I’d never heard of that phrase so I googled it—“cannibalizing one’s work.” Merriam-Webster gives several definitions of “cannibalize”: “To deprive of an essential part of element in creating or sustaining another… Read More Confessions of a Cannibal ~ essay by Marion Deutsche Cohen

“The simple life.” It’s the epitome of happiness and tranquility, yet nearly all Americans find themselves on an ever-accelerating treadmill that makes their lives anything but simple. Here are a few tips for eliminating the complications in your life that keep you from achieving that state of bliss we all dream of: Financial ○ Do… Read More Life Hacks for Simplifying Your World ~ essay by Rhonda Dawson

Liz McShane left San Francisco somewhere along the way and is now a senior client service rep at a major payroll company in the Seattle area. This is her first publication. Image reproduced under a Creative Commons license; credit FiveRings.

(1) Giant Leaps I can’t read a novel without skipping around. First approximation: to the end. Second approximation: every hundred pages. Next: every fifty pages. And then every twenty or ten. I keep lessening the increments until I’m satisfied satisfied enough to relax and skip, like a normal reader, to the next word. (2) What… Read More Skipping Around ~ essay by Marion Deutsche Cohen

Just before my thirteenth birthday, my mother broke her leg in four places. Spiral fractures, osteoporosis. The healing did not go well. She was in a cast for thirteen months. For the first few months, she was in a cast up to her hip. When the breaks in the thigh bones healed, the cast was… Read More Plaster Cast ~ essay by Joy Wright

We knew we didn’t belong, my sisters and me. We knew by the way the saleslady tightened her mouth, the edges of her lipstick pulling so hard the corners cracked. “Girls,” she clapped, and we huddled together by the winter sweaters, our worn sneakers sinking the carpet. “I haven’t all day,” she snapped, and we… Read More A Fancy Department Store in Cleveland, 1970 ~ essay by Cinthia Ritchie

Melanie and I took the bus from Chicago to Milwaukee on a Friday. We had just started dating and I was in love. Our hosts for the weekend would be Melanie’s Aunt Mary Anna and Uncle Joe — my first shot at meeting her extended family. We were college students, so of course we were… Read More Scavenging ~ essay by Jim Ross

GREEN surrounds me as I enter the butterfly pavilion. The leaves of the trees and flowers create an oasis in the Sonoran desert. All seems still inside, protected from the dry winds, until I notice the undulant motion of butterflies winging above me, swooping down to sip at the nectar of the blossoms. The guide… Read More Multicolored ~ nonfiction by Luanne Castle

Tom Barra was from Queens, Italian, early 20s, playing the part of a preteen in our show. His fraternity brothers called him Cuda and stitched that on his jacket. Squat-shaped with tattoos, hairy back, 5 o’clock shadow. It took a lot of time and makeup to make him look the part of a young boy… Read More On Stamp Collections and Sentiment ~ essay by Bill Pearse

In the night but before slumber three independent witnesses, two of which had earbuds in their ears with electrical devices turned on, heard a swishing sound loud and distinct and impossibly peculiar. There is a level of astonishment wherein one exclaims something but there is another place, past that, where all you can do is… Read More Chaga Saga Mama and the Mysterious Swoosh Noise ~ an essay by Brian Michael Barbeito

Science knows that we perceive time differently as we age. Specifically, we see it moving faster, which is a cruel trick our metabolism plays on us. Our dopamine pr­oduction goes down, which has something to do with it too. But who cares why it’s happening? It’s happening. And whether biochemistry or psychology plays a role… Read More No, Bob Marley, Everything is Not Going to be All Right ~ an essay by Edwin Kane

Theme statement: Time travel is impossible. Stop even thinking about it! Introduction For the past 140 years, the imagineers of western civilization have dwelled unrealistically on the idea of traveling through time (forward or backward) to observe or even change events. It’s never going to happen. For millennia, in fact, as far back as ancient… Read More On the Impediments to Time Travel ~ an essay by Alyson Woods

So I’m off social media. I did it. I went in too deep, and now I’m just out. Because it flattened me. It started with Facebook. It’s like only Zuckerberg really understood what was going to be happening, and had to happen, and that is that people would start connecting. But he might not have… Read More Tiddlywinks ~ an essay by Krista McCarthy