The Note

I sat with the note in my lap, stunned and glad to be alone in the kitchen. The laundry gave me something to do with my hands while I settled my mind. Continue reading →

Beginner’s Mind vs. the Dark House

by Lisa Peet

I craved—I still crave—transcendence, some kind of transformation to click through the plodding circuits in my brain and fire them up again, one by one, turning the lights back on. Continue reading →

Don’t Just Pass ‘Em By

By Martha Anne Toll

“It came in a sudden gust, the thought that I could give it all up, throw everything overboard, ditch the career in social justice that I truly loved and that was close to forty years in the making, and do what had been calling me for decades: write full time.” Continue reading →

On Finding Myself at a Writing Residency in Southern France

by Martha Anne Toll

Despite vast differences in wealth, status, ancestry, time, and setting, the eight-year-old girl in John Singer Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit haunts me. Why? Continue reading →

The Secret Story: K. L. Cook on What’s Hidden

by Joe Schuster

“Maybe all stories are really about secrets and revelations” – K. L. Cook Continue reading →

Scarlett in Fact

by Maureen Teresa McCarthy

She begins to understand deep and lasting connection, her ties with Mammy, Melanie, and Tara, that she has always ignored. She is still growing, still changing, even though she is a grown woman. She is not caught, even if the web is one she made herself. Continue reading →

The Dreaded Question

by Marlene Adelstein

Looking back, there were fleeting moments of ecstatic writing pleasure . . . That feeling of gratification is just enough to make me want to do the whole damn thing again, with a new story and new characters, no matter how long it will take. Continue reading →