Today would have been my mom’s sixty-sixth birthday.
I don’t usually make a post for her birthday, only on the anniversary of her death. I’m sure it’s to the annoyance of those who follow me online and maybe even to some of my friends. I’m sure some people see it as morbid, that others are probably wondering why I’m still going on about it as if I’ll ever stop grieving my mom. But not too long ago someone I follow who also has a dead mom made a post for her mom on her birthday and remembered her then, instead of on the day that she died.
“Little Natalie, never rest until you have uncovered your essential self. Remember that. Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts is a clean pure being made of radiant colours,” (Jackson 42).
Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite is eager to start at Bennington College. There she’ll be away from her egotistical father that she conforms to but can’t help but love and her neurotic mother who she resents. But once Natalie finds herself at Bennington the happiness and understanding of who she could be doesn’t come. Natalie doesn’t know how to fit in and finds herself in the company of one of her professors and his wife and a strange new friend trying to find her place and self-amongst it all. Continue reading
“However much Connie’s absence permeated my every though, I had never once said so out loud. Never recounted to anyone the lost, dark-edged hours, knowing that the words themselves, the weight of them in my mouth, would be like drowning, and all at once her disappearance would cease to be a series of frantic flashes, scattered in ungraspable ether. It would be linear. It would be a thing that another person told another person,” (Galway).
In 1955 New Orleans the Fayette sisters Fritzi, Constance, and Bonnie love, tease, and care for one another as only sisters can, relying on each other since their emotionally distant parents keep themselves at arms length. But when Constance disappears the youngest Bonnie seems to be the only Fayette worried about what has happened to her, everyone else assuming that Constance has simply run away. Bonnie is determined to discover what has happened to her sister and unravels the secrets of Constance’s life and goes on a journey that takes her through the swampland and meeting wealthy families to find the truth. Continue reading
A saint for hares and little creatures is a saint I can get behind, so let’s learn some more about Saint Melangell!
Who was Saint Melangell?
Melangell (pronounced Mel-an-geth in Latin Monacella which translates to “little nun”) was a seventh or eighth century Irish princess who fled Ireland after her father set up an arranged marriage for her. Melangell wanted to live a life of prayer and solitude and found a home in what is now Wales.
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Melangell lived there peacefully for fifteen years when a man named Brochwel, the Prince of Powys whose wilderness Melangell was living on, came upon her when hunting with his hounds. Brochwel’s hounds were chasing a hare who then took refuge in Melangell’s cloak. Brochwel tried to urge his hounds forward to continue hunting for the hare but they refused to go near Melangell and fled.
“I will never forgive you, unless you find the murderer before the statute of limitations is up. If you can’t do that, then atone for what you’ve done, in a way I’ll accept. If you don’t do either one, I’m telling you here and now — I will have revenge on each and every one of you,” (Minato 196).
Ten-year-old friends Sae, Maki, Akiko, Yuko, and Emily are playing at a school playground during a summer holiday when a repair man comes asking one of the girls to help him. While the girls are eager to help the man chooses Emily, promising ice cream for each when they return. Hours later with no sign of Emily the girls go into the school and learn the horrifying truth: that Emily has been murdered. Emily’s mother Asako is despondent over the murder and doesn’t believe that the four girls are being honest when they claim not to remember the man’s face to police. She blames Sae, Maki, Akiko, and Yuko for the death of her daughter and promises that if they do not find the murderer before the statue of limitations runs out in fifteen years time she will have her revenge. Continue reading
“But if it was all of us on planet Earth inside this shiny, driverless car, then what would we be exiting, besides reality? What would we tumble into, if not a void?” (Kushner 25).
Former FBI and now rogue secret agent Sadie Smith, as she introduces herself to readers and to everyone around her, is assigned by an unknown figure to incite provocation in a rural French eco-commune. To do this she begins a relationship with Lucien and makes him believe their love is more than just convenient for her. As Sadie entrenches herself with the members of the commune she hacks into the emails of Bruno Lacombe, an unseen mentor to the activists who calls for them to return to the ancient past and say goodbye to modernity. As Sadie’s employers ask for her to escalate things in the commune, Sadie finds herself seduced by Bruno’s ideas and history. Continue reading
I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.
“Yes, baby…That’s exactly what a purple bear should do,” (“Purple Bears,” Ghadery 47).
I adore flash fiction. I think it’s an underappreciated form of writing and incredibly challenging to develop character, plot, and setting in a story that typically consists of only 1-3 pages. Ghadery’s collection is absolutely stunning though, I was shocked by the amount of depth and heart in each of these stories. Some of the characters appear in a few stories or reference others, which I enjoyed. Each stor Continue reading
“As far as she was concerned, family had nothing to do with proximity or blood. Family was a chosen thing. A label earned,” (Schwab).
Seven years after the three Antari, magicians who can control all elements and move between realms, Kell Maresh, Lila Bard, and Holland Vosijk defeated Osaron and stopped the poisonous Black London magic from infecting the other worlds, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other threats to their worlds. In White London a new Antari, Kosika, has been crowned Queen and will do anything to keep the magic flowing in her world, even if that means giving her own blood and the blood of her people as an offering. In Red London a terrorist organization is rising up and threatening to kill King Rhy Maresh, and then there is Tes, a young girl who can see and repair the threads of magic that make up her world. When a strange man brings her a box that needs repairing Tes does as she always has, fix it and makes it better, not knowing what trouble will follow in her wake. Continue reading
“Reconciliation is a process, and that process must begin with an honest assessment of our history,” (Sniderman and Sanderson, xiii).
The small town of Rossburn and Waywayseecappo reserve have neighboured one another for nearly as long as Canada has been a country. The two communities are divided by a beautiful valley and years of racism. In Rossburn a town of Ukrainian immigrants where more than a third of adults graduate university while less than a third of adults have graduated high school in the Waywayseecappo reserve. Sniderman and Sanderson follow two families, one white and one Indigenous over multiple generations to show the story of Canada, and the ways that prejudice and inequality builds in communities. Continue reading
Sometimes I forget that my hair is blue. Or I guess it’s not that I forget that it’s blue but I forget that it’s a part of me altogether. I’ll be walking down the street or sitting at the desk at work when a stranger or customer will tell me that they like my hair, or else they’ll squint their eyes at me before asking how often I have to keep it up before I remember that it’s blue. At one workplace I was nicknamed “Blue-Haired Sarah,” because even though I was the only Sarah who worked there everyone knows a Sarah, but not everyone knows a Blue-Haired Sarah.
Sarah O'Connor 