Category: Nonfiction

Picking at the Nail

Megan Eralie-Henriques Look closely at my hands. Notice how I’ve shredded the skin around my jagged nails. Look closer. See my fingernails picking at wounds, scarcely able to scab over. Bleeding,...

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Of These Maypops Blooming

LaTanya McQueen As the boy he was, a child who loved and was loved, and if only they’d seen him as this and not whatever it was they saw instead to warrant what they believed, maybe then they would...

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Notes on Property

Esther Ra 2025 Spring Contest Nonfiction Winner On the first day of Property class, we each filled out a survey describing our most valuable piece of property. Some write, My law degree. Others, My...

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A Name Belongs to One Person

Brooklin Pigg My mom started dating a man named Elliot when my friend Elliot died. If I asked her for the timeline, I’m sure she would remind me that she was seeing her Elliot a few weeks or even...

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Penance

Ecem Yücel Content Warning: This essay contains depictions of and discusses the following sensitive topics: domestic violence, animal death. I once rebelled against my mother, whispers mother. She...

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The Second Handle

Cila Warncke Content Warning: This essay contains depictions of and discusses the following sensitive topics: sexual assault.   Everything has two handles, one by which you can carry it, the other...

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Letter to My Mother

Jacqueline Goyette I want to describe for you what it looks like from the window in my bedroom. The city of Macerata out in the distance, beyond the other apartments in their stucco walls. In their...

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All the Lines I Missed

Lauren D. Woods I had a poetry class to take, my first. Think about repetition within poems, the prompt said. Come ready to share one form of repetition. But I skipped the poetry class because I...

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Two Truths and a Lie

Mauri Pollard Johnson How to Play: Give three statements about yourself. Let two be truths and one be a lie. Make your lies rest in the space between believable and outlandish. Make them sound like...

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Old Gods

Rose McMackin I know the summer constellations well. Cassiopeia, chained to her chair. Cygnus, the swan with the bright star Deneb in his tail. Aquila, the eagle, bearing thunderbolts across the sky....

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