The Boy Who Drew Cats
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

The Boy Who Drew Cats

by Jesse Lee Kercheval
Outside there is a pandemic and I am in lockdown in Montevideo, Uruguay, far from my daughter and son also locked down, but in Kanazawa, in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, and I am inside drawing, drawing, drawing, filling sheets of paper, pages drifting to the floor, as if I were the...
Death Sentence
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Death Sentence

by Elena Passarello
I caught head lice in a kindergarten epidemic that had the school nurse knocking on Miz Goforth’s trailer door to check our class with her portable magnifying lamp every day for a month, and though I don’t remember much from my childhood, I easily recall the feel of that spindly...
Jewel
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Jewel

by Sonja Livingston
I. Tasha’s father sits in his recliner watching TV. Wonder Woman is his favorite, or at least, he pays special attention when actress Lynda Carter is on the screen whooping Nazi’s asses. Outfitted in star-studded panties and a gold foil bra, Lynda Carter is impossibly spangled compared to the women...
To Disappear & To Find
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

To Disappear & To Find

by Ira Sukrungruang
The flat of Ohio spreads in subtle swales before us, the sun melting over the cornfields. That’s what my son likes to say: the sun is melting. He sits in his car seat, face lit up in morning light. He is three, and five days out of the week, we...
Defiant
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Defiant

by Kate Hopper
Your pulse beats, defiant, in the tender crook between thumb and forefinger. My gaze shifts between it and your face, your cheekbones prominent, your neck slack. The cardiologist tells you, “Your heart is very sick. You should start to have conversations about the end of life.” And I can feel...
The First Time I Tell My Son to Fuck Off
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

The First Time I Tell My Son to Fuck Off

by Melissa Stephenson
he is thirteen and (let’s be fair) has started testing out fuck the way a few years ago I added a dash of patriarchy to my speech until, finally, the dam broke and now if you can’t hear it, I think you probably have some work to do. He’d said...
Intro to BRCA1+ Quiz
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Intro to BRCA1+ Quiz

by Anne Panning
2. Define “lucky.” 3. Which term best describes what having as-of-this-moment-in-time healthy breasts, ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes removed from your body feels like? a. Whiplashb. Piñatac. The Dark Agesd. Poker  4. Define “Brave.” 5. In terms of figurative language, which is the best doctor-delivered food analogy? a. The uterus...
Partido
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Partido

by Hiram Perez
I am eight years old and lost in my daydreams outside Kmart as I weave in and out between the iron bars used to keep people from stealing shopping carts. Suddenly I become aware of my father’s gaze. I meet his eyes and find myself immobilized by the disgust in...
Children Hunting Bear in the Afternoon
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Children Hunting Bear in the Afternoon

by Noah Davis
A sow bear and a cub were hit by a truck on the road outside my neighborhood. The cub’s torn black fur and cracked claws lay crumpled beside the blown tires. The sow bear, something soft ruptured behind her bones, scrambled up the incline into the green of Pennsylvania June...
Work Lessons
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Work Lessons

by Lizz Huerta
There’s a posture your body learns when you’re always on ladders. Your thighs stay clenched, tailbone forward, hips up-thrust to keep you on balance. You keep your feet wide, quads pressed against the rung they’re closest to, arms steady overhead, brush in hand. You learn micro-seasons invisible to most: the...
I Can Shrink to Perfection
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

I Can Shrink to Perfection

by Francis Walsh
When Ma asks if you’re hungry for dinner, tell her you already ate, then remain mute, even if she protests and wags a wooden spoon in your direction and flicks red sauce across the white linoleum. Your father will continue to read the newspaper. The next morning, announce a newfound...
Visiting My Own Grave
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

Visiting My Own Grave

by Tyler Orion
I run my fingers down the two horizontal scars, still sore and red, on my chest, and I remember how when I had breasts they would slide to either side when I lay on my back, how they rested against my arms in their weighted softness, or when I was...
What Joy Looks Like
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

What Joy Looks Like

by Dorian Fox
Your grandfather on your grandmother’s lap at Christmas, wearing polyester and mismatched plaids, his colostomy bag under his shirt crinkling against her body, and he’s weeping like you’ve never seen, much harder than an hour earlier when he appeared in the dining room doorway and said, “I’m sorry I yelled...
How I Learned to Hide
Current Issue / Issue 66 / January 2021 / Nonfiction

How I Learned to Hide

by Michael McAllister
Six of us in a Cutlass in a Saint Paul suburb. That weekend visitors had come to town. Tom and Sharon, another married couple, had known my parents back in Milwaukee. Tom and Dad had written ad copy together. The visitors slept on the pullout couch that weekend in the...
Latest Issue
Issue 66 / January 2021

Issue 66 / January 2021

January 15, 2021
Our new issue comes with wishes for a safer, healthier world and brilliant essays from Jesse Lee Kercheval, Elena Passarello, Hiram Perez, Michael McAllister, Dorian Fox, Tyler Orion, Noah Davis, Ira Sukrungruang, Sonja Livingston, Anne Panning, Kate Hopper, Lizz Huerta, Melissa Stephenson, Francis Walsh, and Laurie Klein. With photos from Kim Adrian.
Craft Essays

Craft Essays

January 15, 2021
In our Craft section, Nancy Reddy explores the “community we” as a way to convey the experience of a group united by identity, experience, or struggle, and David Perez uses his acting background to show how reading our work aloud can make the written word come alive.
Teaching with Brevity

Teaching with Brevity

January 15, 2021
Apprentice writers, students, and teachers can use our Brevity Archives and index to examine various craft elements and subject areas, and to locate models for essay types and craft techniques.

 

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