By Heather Box I've been to what feels like too many whiskey-drenched nights, filled with shock, loud laughs, tears, subtle nods, and people collapsing in their grief. The way people work to create a silver lining so immediately after someone dies hurts so bad. In all the deaths I’ve seen, I have yet to find … Continue reading You Will Scream It At The Clouds If You Don’t Say It
“B is for Bath” : An Alphabetical Retelling of the Bath School Massacre and its Legacy
By Abbey Toner A: Alphabet During elementary school, kids are aged 5-11. All elementary schoolers should, in theory, know how to read. They should learn the alphabet in preschool, at the ages of 3-4. In the 1920s, schools often combined all grades. During elementary school, kids would have been aged 5-14. Psychologists would say that … Continue reading “B is for Bath” : An Alphabetical Retelling of the Bath School Massacre and its Legacy
It’s Only Temporary
By Chloe Bortnick 20 June 2025 I expected my senior year to be filled with lasts. My last school dances, the last school break, the last day of class, and eventually the last day in my hometown. What no one could have prepared me for was the development of something brand new: a friendship that, … Continue reading It’s Only Temporary
Weathered Baseballs
By Frank Petrignani During lunch I like to leave the office behind and go walking around the baseball field about a mile down the road. I started doing this at a time in my life where I was so stressed I could barely sit still. Somehow, walking that field and finding baseballs brought me a … Continue reading Weathered Baseballs
Money Talks But Not To Me
By Debra J. White Money doesn’t grow on trees, nor is it in my bank account. I’m in my twilight years, recently turned seventy. I’ll probably die without a hefty stock portfolio, or wads of cash stashed underneath my bed. Just as well. I can’t take it with me beyond. Then again, no one else … Continue reading Money Talks But Not To Me
Hardwired
By Jill Sisson There were a lot of them, a small crowd of pronghorns, shining like bits of lightning on the sagebrush hills just outside the small town of Worland, Wyoming. I was part of a three-person crew of field biologists, all of us in our mid-20s, crammed in a government rig to inventory and … Continue reading Hardwired
That Smile
By Ahming Zee The fairest day in hapless mortal’s life Is ever first to flee. --Virgil, Georgics I got laid off last summer – the act of Murphy’s Law that is said to occur at least once in a lifetime – it occurred right after I had booked my trip to Beijing to visit my … Continue reading That Smile
Psalms of Hiawatha
By B Shawn Clark July 16, 2019 Carl Sandburg Home Flat Rock, North Carolina The man stood with quiet rectitude peering above a flat rock into the dense forest beyond. Here the great poet and biographer, who used to live at the farm just up the hill would retreat to a spot far enough from … Continue reading Psalms of Hiawatha
Heritage
By Huma Farid My lineage is a black hole, adrift from the reality of my present. I stand alone, an alien amongst those who have casually, thoroughly laid claim to a land that could not be claimed. I wonder: what must it feel like for your ancestors’ memories to shape your history? What must it … Continue reading Heritage
Reaching for Light + Others
By Victor Fu-Zhou Reaching for light This photograph grabs a frozen moment of wonder as a child stretches up toward a ceiling of shining bulbs and swinging chains. Photographed in stark black and white, the image draws the eye to contrast—between shadow and light, innocence and complexity, earthiness and aspiration. The composition lifts the eye … Continue reading Reaching for Light + Others
Academy of the Heart And Mind 