“When I was in high school, ambition meant two things: escaping my hometown and becoming a writer.”
adolescence
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Dad and Kurt Cobain
This excerpt from Hua Hsu’s memoir offers a glimpse into his parents’ generation of immigrants from Taiwan to America, and the faxes they sent to each other about homework, zines, and Nirvana. My parents had fond memories of listening to the station when they were teen-agers, back when it was Armed Forces Radio. In time, […]
Posted inUncategorized
Final Girl, Terrible Place
I was expecting a handy theory. What I found was a way of seeing that would help me decode a script I’d been stuck in for much of my life.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Story
Families Like Ours: A Reading List for the Children of Queer Parents
Some of us got to stay with our moms or dads. Others did not.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Keep This to Yourself
“I am carried, cared for, not yet touched by our culture’s casting of my body as other, as divergent. It is less like memory and more like myth.”
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Featured, Nonfiction, Story
Kissed a Girl
Vickie Vértiz maneuvers her way around teenage love, friend envy, and being outed by her Mexican mother.
Posted inNonfiction
I Never Wanted my Hemangioma to Define Me
Emily Weitz looks back at a childhood filled with surgeries, harsh stares, and proving she was more than just the skin on her face.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Featured, Story
Happiness is Fleeting
Good grief, adolescence is difficult. Luckily Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell found solidarity and guidance from The Peanuts Gang.
Posted inNonfiction
Bikini Kill — and My Bunkmates — Taught Me How to Unleash My Anger
While away at summer camp, Melissa Febos discovers the power of her generation’s rage and feminism.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story
Riding the Highs and Lows with My Mom
On a night out in the Hollywood hills, Valentina Valentini’s lifelong role-reversal with her mother becomes upended.