“If you have the depth, the surface can be as light as it’s possible to make it…I don’t mind that ‘Swimming Home’ is sometimes described as a ‘beach read’ — actually that’s a triumph.”
memory
Posted inNonfiction
Hello, Forgetfulness; Hello, Mother
Peering into the mirror of her mother, Marcia Aldrich wonders whether she too is sentenced to dementia.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Take Script, Add Snow
The psychology behind America’s obsession with Hallmark Christmas movies.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Story
Seventeen
Steve Edwards revisits an early heartbreak to ask: “How do we find compassion for who we used to be?”
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Who Really Gets to Make the Rules?
“But who gets to impose those rules and who becomes subject to them can be decisions tainted with sexism and racism and transphobia and homophobia. “
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
Making Peace with the Site of a Suicide
One woman reconciles with her father’s death on her family’s property.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Food, Nonfiction
Forgetting the Madeleine
A pastry chef reflects on taste, memory, and literature’s most famous confection.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Children of ‘The Cloud’ and Major Tom: Growing Up in the ’80s Under the German Sky
“In the sky you could watch history happen as though on the world’s most massive TV, and history’s wreckage could rain down on you at the park with your friends.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Sports, Story
Smell, Memory
Perfumers evoke the elegance of an imagined tennis game, not the stench of a real one.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Spark Connection
Kirsten Tranter is cleaning out her closet. But her clothes don’t spark joy, they spark memory.