My Personal Creative Nonfiction
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Who Would I Encounter in a Psychomanteum?
I sit on a low chair in a small, dimly lit room. A candle burns behind me. In front of me stands a long rectangular mirror. I am seated at an angle to the mirror so that I don’t see my own image. As I’ve been instructed to do, I think about family members who… Continue reading
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Quicksand
Miss Bell tells me to stand up. She’s the first-grade Sunday school teacher at Tuckahoe Presbyterian. She says she’s sending me to Mrs. Platt’s office. Mrs. Platt is the education director, the closest thing the church has to a school principal. I am six years old, and I am in trouble for lying. Every Sunday,… Continue reading
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Twelfth Summer
A childhood friend texted me recently to ask a question. When we were twelve, her father took the two of us to an Osmond Brothers concert in Baltimore. Did I remember the date that we went to that concert? I remembered. The date has stayed with me over the intervening decades. I replied to her… Continue reading
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Greens
In her later years, my Aunt Hazel could be observed on summer evenings pacing back and forth across her suburban front lawn eyeing the ground. Amid the standard lawn grass in her unruly yard were a host of edible infiltrators: lamb’s quarter, dandelion leaves, and what she called redroot greens. She picked them as she… Continue reading
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Enough
I move into an old house in Ypsilanti and winter there, braving sub-zero temperatures only to drive to and from work. The rest of the time I’m in bed, swaddling myself in a wool blanket through the twilight days of a Michigan January, shielding myself from the house’s drafts and chills. Chills haunt me through… Continue reading
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Update on 25,000 Words by April Challenge
I’m surprised and happy to report that I surpassed my writing goal last week! My university was on its spring break, so I did not have classes. I could work from home. That allowed me to devote time first thing each morning to writing 1000 words. One day I wrote over 2000 words. My total… Continue reading
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
If so, this blog is for you.