|
|
|
 750
WORDS ABOUT CANCER
By Rebecca Housel
We
are not diagnosed with a deadly disease, we are merely interrupted,
as if in the middle of an engaging phone conversation, and then,
a child tugs at the hem of your blouse to ask an absurd question
that has no answer.
|
 AN
ESSAY ON TANGO COMPOSED WHILE LISTENING TO ADRIANA VARELA
By Patrick Rosal
If like me you don’t know well the cruel music of
tango, then you don’t know how its truths can haunt you. |
 THE
ORIGIN OF SAUSAGE
By Rachael Pridgeon
For
as long as I live I’ll never forget the sight (and site) of those
carcasses, split in half from jowl to tail, their feet literally
hooked to the ceiling for gravity to do its work.
|
 THE
THINGS I'VE LOST
By Brian Arundel
My virginity:
in 1980, a couple weeks short of 16, in a ritual so brief, awkward
and forgettable that I have, in fact, forgotten it. My heart, or
so I thought, in 1985. |
 HEAT
By Rita Ciresi
All
hell broke loose in my first French class when our teacher tried
to explain the linguistic differences between those who measured
the temperature in Fahrenheit and those who measured it in Centigrade.
|
 PRIVATE
BATH
By Fleda Brown
I had to wrap my slippery thin traveling robe around me and head
down the hall past the half-dozen other rooms, hoping to God no
one was in the bathroom during my morning window of personal opportunity. |
 THE
ELECTRODYNAMICS OF LOVING OLD MEN
By Sheyene Foster Heller
I love the way the fiery temper of your youth has
smoldered, how you’ve become careful in making conversation and
generous in making love. |
 CONFESSION
By Michelle Valois
My
English teacher's daughter was one year younger than me, but seduced
me in that clever way Catholic girls have of making you think it
was all your fault. |
 TEACHING
ERRORS
By Jillian Schedneck
As
my bitten fingernail zigzags over his sentences, I realize that
even my fingers don’t match my image of a fourth grade teacher,
who should be neat and composed, with a rosy complexion and trimmed,
polished nails. |
 CIRCLING
By
Lisa Kahn Schnell
There
was a woman who died while I was in Daffiama; she was young and
eight months pregnant. I didn’t go to the funeral, but those who
did said you could see the baby circling around inside of her, like
a hand moving under a sheet. |
Essays
on the Craft of Creative Nonfiction
Lia
Purpura on Miniatures, Peggy Shumaker on Brief Forms, Rebecca
McClanahan on the tranformative power of Reflection, Diana Hume
George on Copyediting, and Jeff Gundy on Speed.
Go
to Craft Essays |
