“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 …
I received this book from The Next Best Book Club in exchange for an honest review. “Your past is chiseled into the earth; your future is written in the air. Your time alive was precious because it was limited,” (Stickle 13, “Modern Ghosts”). I’ve never read or reviewed a chapbook before, so this should be fun! At …
I received this book from The Next Best Book Club in exchange for an honest review. “That morning he had waited at the station for the train to start running again, his head low, body shaking, and he understood why people killed, why people stopped feeling, why people stopped believing in God. He heard the first train …
“I fear that I’m bitter. I’m too young to be bitter. Especially as a result of a life that people supposedly envy. And I fear that I resent my mother. The person I have lived for. My idol. My role model. My one true love,” (McCurdy 120). Former child actor Jennette McCurdy reveals all about …
“The trick was not to let them see you suffering,” (Foss 142). There’s too much happening in middle-aged single parent Elin Henriksen’s life. Her distant mother’s health is declining, her teenage daughter Betts is planning on going somewhere but won’t tell Elin where, the new high school principal where she teaches disapproves of how she …
“Neither the void or the cliff above it look the same to me as they do to normal people. The void, for me, has stuff in it, so it’s not a void anymore; and the cliff is engulfed by a black and measureless haze,” (Khoda 17). Twenty-three year old Lydia is living alone and away from …
“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 …
“‘It all started with the rain.’ That’s what the people of Springville say whenever asked about the fatal Prom Night that occurred over a decade ago, leaving a town in complete ruins,” (Jackson 15). A decade before tragedy struck the town of Springville on Prom Night, leaving many dead, and the survivors and bystanders can …
“The empty devils are on the land like a cancer on the skin…They eat screams and drink pain. You had your horrors at the Overlook, Danny, but at least you were spared these folks,” (King 257). Decades after a horrific winter in the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance drifts through life and alcohol, desperate to escape his …
Wow, more fun announcements, look at me go! Anyone remember 2020? It sure was one heck of a year. Well, at the beginning of that year (before everything else happened) I found out my story “What Happened to Natalie?” was an honourable mention for gritLIT’s 2020 Writing Contest! It was very exciting because 1) I …
Sarah O'Connor 