Creative Nonfiction
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All You Can Carry For Two Dollars
An homage to the service industry. For the past five months, I worked as a hostess and server at a casual/upscale restaurant. Its interior reflects the building’s original, prohibition-era speakeasy…
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Searching the Maze
“I’ll have what she’s having,” I told the waiter, pointing confidently to Marcie. For three days, I ordered only what Marcie ordered, and she hasn’t been wrong yet. “Ah, all…
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What I Learned Flipping my Late Grandfather’s House
My grandfather passed away last year. My “papa,” my dad’s dad, my last living grandfather. It was dementia, ultimately, that took his life. And with that loss came a lot…
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Pinching the Edges
The first time I tasted a cheese pierogi was the first Christmas that I had teeth. And I’ve tasted one every Christmas since. The browned onions, the salty dough, the…
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Lost in Translation
“Ich bin ein bleistift auf dem flughafen [ick bin eye-n BLIE-shtift off dem floog-hoffen],” my dad chanted through the streets of Berlin with a cheeky grin on his face. His…
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How to Walk Alone
Winner of the University of South Carolina’s Havilah Babcock Short Story Award Step by Step Instructions: How to Walk Alone from the Library to your Car at Two in the…
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Man’s Search for Meaning in COVID-19
Due to my newfound abundance of free time, I’ve been rereading old books. Most recently was Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning – “the classic tribute to hope from…
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Culture Shock
“It’s a bigger culture shock than you’d think,” a friend told me. She studied in Rome the semester before me, and despite her four months of experience, I didn’t believe…
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High Flying in Switzerland
I’ve never been much of an “outdoors” person. Hiking is exhausting, camping is terrifying, and fishing is uneventful. I have allergies, which means watery eyes and a runny nose whenever…
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Crutches
A temporary blindness came over me as I stepped from the sun into the dark church. A large, blurry, blue hole morphed across my eyesight like a lava lamp. Shoes…
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Gringa
My first day at La Casa Verde was a Tuesday, and Tuesday was trash day. The streets of Desamparados were lined with mounds of trash to the point where sidewalks…
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Sell it for Parts
I barreled onto the grass median coughing up smoke as if my esophagus was an exhaust pipe. The mud and rain soaked into my jeans as I crouched on all…