Pain is indeed inherited, but treating it as an affliction need not be handed down from generation to generation.
Essays & Criticism
Posted inUncategorized
The Problem of Pain
Pain is indeed inherited, but treating it as an affliction need not be handed down from generation to generation.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The File: Lost Then Found
A personal essay in which A.M. Homes — who ten years ago published The Mistress’s Daughter, a memoir about meeting her birth parents — reports on the experience of recently being given her long lost adoption file, and the effects of the information on her understanding of her origins.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Outside the Manson Pinkberry
Manson bloggers, the world of murder fandom, and the philosophy of being — can you ever escape who you are, or were?
Posted inEditor's Pick
Cast by Chronic Illness Into a Limiting Role
A personal essay in which Maris Kreizman recalls having her dreams of attending performing arts camp — not to mention her Broadway ambitions — dashed by juvenile diabetes, and illness she refuses to be defined by.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When a Mother and Daughter Reverse Roles
A personal essay in which Marlene Adelstein looks a her obsession with an orphaned sea otter and realizes it’s helping her process her grief over her Alzheimers-afflicted mom.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Much is Too Much to Save a Dying Cat?
A personal essay in which author s.e. smith ponders why in seeking treatment for dying pets we tend to postpone the inevitable, inadvertently prolonging their suffering .
Posted inEditor's Pick
To the Lady Who Mistook Me For the Help at the National Book Awards
A personal essay by poet Patrick Rosal — an excerpt of We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America, edited by Brando Skyhorse and Lisa Page. The piece is framed as a letter to a white woman who mistook him for a server at the black-tie National Book Awards gala, which he […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Itch and the Touch
Families are complicated. Caring for Grandpa John was even more so.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Doctor Will See You Now
A personal essay in which Sarah Miller eulogizes her mother’s black sheep brother.