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I picture my father, dead a dozen years now, reaching from the great beyond to tap me on the shoulder. “What do you want, Pa?” I ask. “Look,” he says. “I’ve been practicing my moonwalk.”
By Peter E. MurphyOctober 2022A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
August 2022What if . . . our taste for alcohol has been strengthened and preserved in our gene pool for functional reasons? Then we might look at intoxication not as a side note but as part of the story of what makes us human.
By Derek AskeyJuly 2022— from “Sleep Skills” | These days I wake up tired / after hours skimming sleep’s / surface like a hungry bird, waiting. / They say it’s a fact of growing older, / to lose the skill for sleep infants / and teenagers effortlessly have.
By Andrea PotosJune 2022You never grew tired of watching her work. You loved the hum of the machine, the sawdust that stuck to her sleeve, and how she bent her head over the wood like something swan. You knew she was sharing something intimate with you. You were witnessing prayer.
By Sophie EzzellJune 2022“Home improvement” always entails physically fixing up one’s house. But what about the emotional work of homeownership? One way to improve your home is through gratitude and acceptance. Does everything constantly need to be “fixed”?
By SparrowMay 2022For all Dad’s skill with wood and tools, his life was sloppily built. Some sorrow whose origins I can’t name led him to consistently misread the ruler. What does a son do with the wreckage of his father’s life forty-six years after his death?
By Bruce BallengerMay 2022After that incident I sorted people into two categories: those who could sing and those who couldn’t. I was now relegated to the land of Couldn’t, an exile from the country of music.
By Alison LutermanApril 2022In grad school I had a writing teacher who’d completely cream my essays. / Cross-outs and tracked changes. He took me at my word / when I said I wanted to get better.
By Emily SernakerApril 2022At Woodstock, at a school in Nepal, at an all-ages punk show
By Our ReadersApril 2022Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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