“The central tragedy of childhood is never getting what you want,” (Easton). Easton’s memoir explores their life growing up in the West as a Mormon, queer, Autistic individual. Following them as a child in the Mormon church and a student at an Anglican boys’ boarding school to be “reformed,” to mall bathrooms, rodeos, bathhouses, and Catholic …
“I’m no longer sure which is worse: surviving and living the rest of my life as a lie, or wasting away in this apartment and dying from this cancer,” (Maylott 35). Paige Maylott’s debut memoir is an honest exploration of transition and discovery. Finding solace, community, and love in online communities and games, Maylott comes into …
“We will all be stories one day, and I’d want someone to believe we existed. Wouldn’t you?” (Shannon 582). For fifty years Tunuva Melim has been a sister of the Priory, trained to slay wyrms even though the younger generation has started to question the Priory’s purpose when no dragons have been seen for hundreds of …
“Yeah. In a world that wants me to hate myself, teaches me to hate myself, expects me to hate myself, learning to love myself instead can be an entire revolution,” (Callender 310). Lark Winters is an aspiring author, but until publication of their uncompleted manuscript Birdie Takes Flight happens, Lark must post on their social media accounts to …
“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 …
Sarah O'Connor 