“People love an idea, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Even if they only know how to do exactly the wrong thing,” (Machado 228). In her memoir, Carmen Maria Machado finds the words, after years and difficulty, to articulate what it was like being in an abusive same-sex relationship. Part fairy-tale, horror …
“Whether we realize it or not, we often find ways to alleviate feelings of existential aloneness through the seeking of unity…Food, entertainment, success, sex, relationships, busyness, gossip — there are plenty of ways to divert our attention from the unavoidable, terrifying aloneness of human existence,” (Bolz-Web, Nadia, 21). Sex has long been a taboo subject in …
“The Victoria Station burns so ferociously that the man with the binoculars can feel the heat from his perch in the helicopter,” (Ames 1). Anxiety-ridden Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break in Antarctica after answering an advertisement that popped up on her Instagram feed. Sponsored by SladeTech, one of the world’s biggest tech companies owned …
After getting a call from her estranged, dying mother to come home Vera Crowder does, because that’s what a good daughter would do. But home means the Crowder House, the house her father built, and though Vera felt much comfort there growing up it has it’s own bodies buried there, literally. Because Vera is the …
“Shame is a way of life here. It’s stocked in the vending machines, stuck like gum under desks, spoken in the morning devotionals,” (McQuiston 288). Four years after moving with her moms from sunny California to False Beach, Alabama and attending Willowgrove Christian Academy, Chloe Green is so close to winning she can almost taste …
“they bisect the frozen river, vacant lots, the barren school field — all roads lead to the Pit.” – Desire Paths (Borin 3). I was lucky enough to get to visit The Westminster Hotel, or as it’s affectionately called The Pit, when I visited Dawson City last fall. When my dad had visited the previous winter he …
I received this book from The Next Best Book Club in exchange for an honest review. “An act of faith. Faith—true faith—does not come without grappling in the shadows; faith never comes free from doubt” (Rauch 100). Sara Rauch is in a long-term relationship with a woman when she begins a low-residency MFA. While there, she finds …
“Why wasn’t fully committing to creation more desirable than observing what everyone else was doing and doing the same?” (Shraya 4). Indie artist Neela Devaki has been writing songs that only a small few seem to actually want to listen too, but when one of Neela’s songs goes viral by internet cover artist RUK-MINI things begin …
Sarah O'Connor 