Can-Picking
We heave creaking Hefty bags over our backs. Bags the size of baby elephants, singed water heaters, stopped engine blocks worth only scrap....
Take Something Ugly
A window gave back the sky, but the window itself wasn’t ugly, just the building it was in. She saw the sun glinting off a piece of broken glass, turning...
The Three Towers
There was no room for artistic license. The towers were warehouses for books and people. If people wanted art or beauty, they could look for it in a book. Each...
An Interview with Manuel Munoz
Munoz: "It’s camera movement. When a camera closes in on someone, I’m startled every time, it’s almost unnoticeable. And I’m sort of mimicking that, where I...
Fall for the Book: Writing Africa Panel
The panel featured readings by Helon Habila, E. C. Osondu, and Susi Wyss. These three distinct voices offered engaging and completely different stories inspired by...
Proofreader
I had turned to James, one of my proofreaders, to guide me in matters of love, to keep me from making mistakes. This now, in itself, seemed to be a mistake. On...
The Love-Hate Theses in 10 Parts
Nurse lifts up a band at the baby’s ankle and turns it over for identification. “A little girl,” Nurse says, as if she hadn’t just seen the...
The Problem with Brigadoon
I was supposed to be funny crazy, not crazy crazy. There’s a difference. Funny crazy is wearing tinfoil hats and washing your hands until they bleed and...
Not a Family
Here, she could carefully read the directions and administer the test. She could sit on the toilet watching the white stick’s cloudy window without the...