A personal essay in which reporter Alice Driver considers what lessons to take from a late uncle’s life.
Personal Essay
Posted inNonfiction, Story, Writing
Use and Abuse
Amy Long on how it feels to fight for the man you don’t want.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Friend That Got Away
A personal essay in which Beverly Donofrio looks back on a friendship she hadn’t expected to make — or to lose.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
When Financial Privilege is Mistakenly Assumed
Lilly Dancyger speaks out about her humble upbringing.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Passing as Privileged
A personal essay in which Narratively deputy editor Lilly Dancyger writes about dealing with people’s mistaken assumptions about the economics of her upbringing. A high-school dropout who later worked her way through college and graduate school, Dancyger grew up poor — the daughter of a single mother who was a recovering heroin addict. In New […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Doomed in Nashville
A personal essay in which, while on a whirlwind book tour, Monica Drake fights to resist the pull of an emotional — and physical — abyss.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story, Writing
The Stuff That Came Between Mom and Me: A Story About Hoarding
Mom would make excuses about not having cleaned the house. I knew they were lies. I knew her house was full.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Writing
The Stuff That Came Between Mom and Me: A Story About Hoarding
Mom would make excuses about not having cleaned the house. I knew they were lies. I knew her house was full.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Stuff That Came Between Mom and Me: A Story About Hoarding
In this unsettling personal essay, Susan Fekete describes the minute ways in which her mother’s compulsions add up to an alarmingly dysfunctional whole. What emerges is a startling portrait of a woman who is wildly generous with her possessions — but also totally overcome by them.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Write a Memoir While Grieving
A personal essay in which Nicole Chung contemplates loss, adoption, and working on a book her late father won’t get to see.