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Readers Write

Houses

An atom-bomb-proof house, the “House of Pain,” a New Mexico forest fire

By Our Readers August 2016
Fiction

Due To Vandalism

The copper is the easiest, isn’t it, vandal? You can clear the whole house with a hammer and a hacksaw. Start in the basement at the water heater. If the property has been properly winterized, the water will be shut off, and even if it hasn’t been, it takes hours for a basement to flood and days for someone to notice. (Just make sure the power is off, for real. In April they found a fried vandal in a cellar in Pontiac, Michigan, his body bobbing as high as the window well.)

By Michael Deagler June 2016
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Garlic In My Ear

In our culture, when you have a medical problem, you visit a doctor, who writes you a prescription; then you drive to a pharmacy and pay thirty-two dollars for a medication. There are few surprises or slip-ups. But if you decide to single-handedly reconnect with a lost ancient lineage of herbal wisdom, you may end up with a short spear of garlic bearing down on your eardrum.

By Sparrow April 2016
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

No Longer On The Map

I had once believed in answers, saviors, miracles, and sages; divine justice and ideal love; the discovery of a lost Taoist parable or a missing biblical passage; a scientific intervention or progressive sociopolitical system that would liberate the oppressed; perhaps even news from NASA about habitable planets accepting applications for novelists. But I knew now that none of this would happen. The letter from a publisher, the spiritual breakthrough, the scientific solution, the literary prize, the big-hearted city, the understanding woman — they were all a mirage.

By Poe Ballantine March 2016
Readers Write

Noise

A crowing rooster, a distant train, a passionate neighbor

By Our Readers October 2015
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

No Talking To Imaginary People

To give me a better shot at catching a long-distance ride, my father dropped me off at the Pine Valley entrance to Interstate 8, about forty miles east of San Diego. He waited till I’d arranged my equipment along the roadside, then took out his camera.

By Poe Ballantine October 2015
Photography

Close To Home

For the last eight years, Michael Dvorak has photographed people in his home state of Minnesota. Taken at county fairs, parades, and on the streets in and around Minneapolis, the images are part of a series he calls “Close to Home.”

By Michael Dvorak June 2015
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Small Time

From outside, Jumbo’s was nothing more than a black-painted steel door in a brick wall, above which was a sign with a grinning yellow clown. When a customer came or went, the door would open for a moment, and I could glimpse the rich blackness of its interior and smell stale beer and cigarette smoke. Especially in the evenings, the illuminated yellow clown sign called out to me.

By Alex R. Jones April 2015
Poetry

The Encounter At Twenty, 1966

The day that it happened, / my teacher had written crap on the bottom of my first poem. / I wanted to throw it into the Hudson / where it would sink with its no / under the gulls, the garbage scows, and the litter.

By Ellery Akers September 2013
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Tyranny Of Paradise

When I was twenty-four years old, it looked to me as if America were coming down. It was 1979, and there was runaway inflation, long lines for gasoline, a nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island. Men were curling their hair and wearing high-heeled shoes, and the Soviets were still poised to bomb us off the map.

By Poe Ballantine June 2013