Category Archives: Guest writer

By Violet Suta Moran This essay is an excerpt from Violet’s latest book, Sweetgrass: Growing Up in Montana. One summer, my three sons and their families came to the mountains of Montana for a reunion with the Suta family.  After … Continue reading →

By Renee Lajcak Renee writes both for the page and for performance, adjusting her style for each. “For spoken word, I use shorter sentences, more repetition. On the page, you can be more abstract. For listeners, I keep it visual, … Continue reading →

By Faith Ellestad Ok, I’ll host the party, I guess, it is my turn I put it off for many years,Well, now I’ll feel the burn. Memories of gath’rings past come flooding back in wavesA spicy mix of relatives,Perhaps I’m … Continue reading →

By Loriann Knapton Today I made potato salad. I started with my grandmother’s recipe, passed down from one mother in the family to another. As the small red potatoes cook, I start to chop hard-boiled eggs, celery, and onion, and … Continue reading →

By Janet Manders My owner handed me over to her eight-year-old granddaughter. Actually, that’s not how it really happened. The kid grabbed me. Right out of the tight, protective grasp of the person who typically holds me. During that abrupt … Continue reading →

By Marlene Samuels My Aunt Esther was ecstatic about hosting Thanksgiving dinner that year because it would be the first holiday she and Uncle Ziggy would be celebrating in their brand new, first-ever house. It was a huge departure from … Continue reading →

By Josh Feyen This is part two of a two-part series on a topic we don’t talk about. (Click here to read part one.) Now, I’ll be the first to admit, as a man, I can’t speak from personal experience … Continue reading →

By Carol J. Wechsler Blatter Sometimes I have an empty feeling when I wake up—feeling in no place. I’m taking up space. Always when I walk each morning these feelings fade, seeing everything here in the Sonoran desert enveloped in … Continue reading →

By Marlene Samuels It’s October once more, and last week, I was visually assaulted by Halloween decorations at my local “big-box-store”. The moment I walked in, memories of my especially unsettling and very awkward first ever American Halloween also assaulted … Continue reading →

by Donald A. Ranard Clifford, the guard, couldn’t stay awake. Our house in Colombo, Sri Lanka—an old sprawling colonial bungalow surrounded by flowering bushes and frangipani trees—came with round-the-clock guards. Clifford was the night guard. One night, a week after … Continue reading →