Nonfiction

A Mother’s Dilemma—Mary Chris Bailey

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 A Mother’s Dilemma by Mary Chris Bailey There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.—Washington Irving everal days after our youngest son Bryan’s surgery, the hospital offered us the opportunity to bring his brothers, Donovan and Sean, in to see him. I thought it was because no one was sure ...

The/rapist—Angela Sells

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 The/rapist by Angela Sells ey, here’s someone from Pacifica, too,” my boyfriend, Will, noted, leafing through a pamphlet of upcoming speakers invited to the Seattle Jung Society. We were sitting in the back of a Victorian-era dining room that had been converted into a classroom at seven p.m. on a Saturday night. During a whirlwind weekend in December, I was invited to speak about my dissertation ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Nonfiction Letter from the Nonfiction Editor: Compassion and Pain Cadence of Life | Carole Hemmelgarn Nothing by Mouth | Shirley Phillips The/rapist | Angela Sells Searching for Answers | Annette Davis Pluto Opposes the Sun | Patricia Fox A Mother’s Dilemma | Mary Chris Bailey Happy Thoughts | Rosa Jordan

Walking the Labyrinth—Cindy Carlson

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Walking the Labyrinth by Cindy Carlson ive years have passed since I last visited the tiny park in Newport News, Virginia, that’s nestled between a branch of Lake Maury and the Riverside Regional Medical Center. The area is wooded, remnants of a mixed forest of loblolly and oak that used to surround the slow green water of the lake. Stone walkways wind through a landscaped area ...

Letter from the Nonfiction Editor

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Letter from the Nonfiction Editor: Writing Through the Pain by Grace Jasmine ain is a heavy subject. It is fraught with emotion, with drama, with real-life tragedy and hardship. It is an especially difficult subject to edit—but even more so, it is a terribly difficult subject about which to write. However, in this section, you will meet eight women of fortitude and courage, a tribe of unrelated but ...

The Episodes—Ilze Duarte

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 The Episodes by Ilze Duarte t was a cool evening in the fall of 1982 in São Paulo, Brazil. I could hear my parents and my sister downstairs in the kitchen, finishing dinner. I was in bed, with my lamp light on, still recovering from “the episode,” as my family had come to call it. It took about three hours to go away this time. About six ...

My Empty Embrace—Rebecca Ryall

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 My Empty Embrace by Rebecca Ryall labor to deliver her through a fog of drugs and the hospital sounds of rubber shoes on lino, the beep of monitors, the hum of florescent lighting, the too-cold air and smell of latex gloves. She slips through the veil, slips on her skin, and becomes. Despite the classes and books, I am completely unprepared for the ways in which my ...

Your Therapist Is an Addict—Jane Seskin

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Your Therapist Is an Addict by Jane Seskin Here’s the truth. I never met a cigarette I didn’t like. And while I may have flirted with Kent, Marlboro, and Salem, for thirty-six years, my most constant partner in a two-and-a-half pack a day affair was Newport Light 100s. We became acquainted in a restaurant ladies’ room during a friend’s party when she said: “Try this, it’s cool.” And ...

Traces—Janice E. Rodríguez

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Traces by Janice E. Rodríguez y husband dropped a container of foot powder in the bedroom, and the wintergreen-scented plume sent me reeling away and retching. I have forbidden that smell in our house. My husband gave up his favorite wintergreen candies for me years ago, but secretes the foot powder in the bathroom, using it surreptitiously, thinking I don’t notice, that I don’t hold my breath ...

Leaving Earth—Laura Johnsrude

Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Leaving Earth by Laura Johnsrude I was on a third-year medical school rotation in the pediatric intensive care unit in January, 1986, on a team caring for a baby girl with Listeria meningitis, spinal cord stiff and curved into a C-shape, head reaching back for her heels, as if stargazing. She was in an isolation room in a crib, lying on her side; she couldn’t lie ...