Tag: childhood memories

Dragonflies Fly All the Way Away

Ericka Russell

Summer meant grandma’s 80’s brown conversion van. Brown carpet, brown velvet curtains, semi-sheer accordion blinds and dimpled beige leather seats and a third row, pulled at the rusts into a bed. A speaker system more elaborate than the dash and a giant bread cupboard that actually stored a mini box TV. Read more

Ericka Russell

Ericka Russell is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. After obtaining her BA at Ohio University, she received her MFA from Western Kentucky University. Ericka now pursues college instruction, photography, and outdooring.

Monsoon Season: A Memoir

Dori Owen

In Phoenix, it seems as if you can see forever on the desert floor without mountains to block the view. The flat geography provides a perfect vista to watch summer dust storms arrive. The storms arrive in a slow crawl, picking up momentum in a snail-like fashion. They appear to Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

Mr. Hamilton

Jennifer M. Smith

He was hip. He wore crisp shirts and wide neckties. He had a Seventies mustache and Burt Reynolds hair. His right hand almost always held chalk. His left hand was usually in his front pocket. His Levis were so tight that to remove his hand from his pocket he had Read more

Jennifer M. Smith

Jennifer M. Smith is an author and an adventurer. Together with her husband, she has sailed over 40,000 miles around the world on their sailboat Green Ghost and she has plenty of stories to tell. She is working on a book about her ocean voyages but she is frequently distracted by other creative non-fiction short stories and micro-fiction stories that pop into her head and make a lot of noise until they are released through her pen or her keyboard.

Oneiric projectiles: Dreaming My Female Ancestors Forward

Hiba Zafran

My mother comes to pick me up from kindergarten and is pulled aside by the teacher. “Your daughter doesn’t color between the lines.” “She knows how she just doesn’t want to.” One week later, the same conversation repeats. So, my mother chooses another school for me—my mother, who dropped out Read more

Hiba Zafran

Hiba Zafran is a therapist and academic working in mental health. She is drawn to critical and queering lenses, as well as poetic explorations of encounters as relational spaces of transformation. Her literary work is just starting to step out there, with a poem in The Muse and honorable mention for a micro-essay in Mothers Always Write. She is grateful for the people, values, and peripheries that she calls her home.

My Non-Television Mother and Me: The Interview

Richard DeFino

Read Part 1 here.  Part 2 of a 3 part series In an attempt to understand my mother a little better, I asked her a couple of questions that remained unanswered to myself. My mother has come so far in life, but she appears to be stuck. I want to Read more

Richard DeFino

Ricky De Fino grew up in New York City and currently resides in Buffalo NY. When he isn’t writing about his anxiety and his crazy Bronx upbringing, he enjoys watching countless hours of television with his wife Andrea, cat Bebe and dog Zeke. Two years sober, good coffee and veganism keeps him sane. His work can be found in Two Cities Review, tNY Press, Purple Pig Lit, Dialougal and Cycatrix Press.