I’ve had this post in my drafts for quite a while thinking I would write up an introduction as I normally do. But life kept getting in the way and my head has been elsewhere lately. As always, these Creative Nonfiction pieces are all about life, the little sweet moments and the ones that grow into big, scary things. At the end is an older but still very relevant essay by L Mari Harris about writing while older. As someone who came to the writing life in my 40’s, it resonated. Some good advice in there – don’t miss it!

As a little tease, I want to share that I’m beginning a new writing venture soon with my writer-friend Jamy Bond. ( Maybe if I say it out loud it will really, really happen.) Aw hell, just click this link. 😊 And watch for it!

It Might Have Happened Like This By Kathryn Silver-Hajo in Pithead Chapel

We live three blocks from a cut-through street and sirens blast their way from highway to main drag morning and night, but this time there’s urgency in the rising whine and abrupt stop. My brain calibrates the distance and time my brother’s been gone, then telegraphs run like hell to my nervous system.

Father catches my eyes in the rear-view mirror and says, “Make sure Cookie stays clean.” by Rachel Laverdiere in Five South

Father swerves. Cookie tumbles, and her skull cracks against my nose. Cookie isn’t hurt, but she’s crying. My mouth is filling with the taste of pennies, my nose trickling. Father’s eyes trap me in the rear-view, and he growls, “She’d better not be hurt! Just you wait until I stop this truck.” He startles Baby Brother, who begins to wail. Father turns to Mother and yells, “Shut him
up, or I’ll do it for you!” The hummingbirds that live inside my chest crash their pointy beaks into my throat, flap against my ribs.

WHAT’S THIS LIFE FOR? BY GINA HARLOW in The Raven’s Perch

Although I’d realized a while ago that he could no longer defy age or illness, it still pulled me up, like being caught by a quick lasso, to see him. His hazel eyes, that were so much like mine, were pleading as he looked at me. He seemed to be saying, “Look how they’ve tied and gagged me here,” as if all the helpers in the room were no more than thieves and vandals. He finally did speak, “Gina, everything’s gone wrong.”

We Were the Wild Hunt by Myna Chang in Craft Literary

We breathed in every drop of waterborne enchantment before sleep finally took hold. A few of us passed out in our cars, Chevys and Fords tucked inside a fairy ring of gravel. The rest of us slid into our beds, pretending we’d been home for hours when our parents checked on us, before they set off on their own dawn tasks and early shifts.

The Music of Chance by Jamy Bond in Red Fez

Now, here in Maputo, the sea and the sky were rising up against me. I was no longer sure where I belonged. My father once said that Africa was a big, black hole. It swallowed his daughter in one dark gulp. Now, I hovered at the edge of that hole, looking down into opaque nothingness. I was listening for a voice, traces of a spirit, the echo of my sister’s lost and silent ghost.

On Turning Forty-Four By Kim June Johnson in Riverteeth

Well, now, I was forty-four and I felt a kind of rock-hard grief that it was time to take off my bikini, even though I didn’t technically own one…

THE JOYS OF COMING LATE TO THE TABLE: AN OLDER WRITER SHARES LIFE ADVICE BY L MARI HARRIS in Black Fox Literary

One night a week I’ll disappear to sit in a coffee shop, where many times I’ll write, but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I just need to sit and read a new poetry chapbook over a latte, enjoying the words and the solitude.

Wishing you a great writing and reading week!