Creative Nonfiction

  • A photograph of a squirrel peering through a window

    The Squirrel at the Monastery

    By Lana Spendl
    February 4, 2025 Lana Spendl
    Photo by Pixavril / Stock.adobe.com How do we look to her when she halts outside the window—paws spread, ears alert, tail stiff with hair in all directions—as we sit on the gompa floor,…
  • A photograph of steamed dumplings in a bamboo tray

    Can the Tooth Fairy Pay in Hong Kong Dollars?

    By Wong Yi
    December 17, 2024 Wong Yi
    Photo by KEA / Adobe Stock We met for the first time at a modern Chinese restaurant in the heart of Causeway Bay, the name of which is nowhere near as memorable as the fact that they serve xiao lo…
  • A simple white line drawing of a woman's body on a black canvas

    Storying the Body

    By Stevi L. Smith
    January 17, 2024 Stevi L. Smith
    Illustration by Shovo / Adobe Stock I’m sitting on an exam table talking to a nurse practitioner about a pain in my lower left abdomen. I’ve only ever been to the gynecologist once—she prescribed…
  • A photograph of an aged spread inside of a book with writing in the margins

    Strange Scrawls

    By Connor Lee McLean
    December 13, 2023 Connor Lee McLean
    Photo courtesy of the author Reading a secondhand copy of Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, a reader encounters another consciousness in the margins. I’d like to say that I stumb…
  • A photograph of a dog chewing on a toy while laying on a large dog bed

    Things the Puppy Eats

    By Marlene Olin
    November 30, 2023 Marlene Olin
    Photo courtesy of the author We each safeguard our possessions. Michael buries his pens inside a drawer. Rachel hides her purse. On tiptoes, I lay my watch on the highest shelf. Things the puppy e…
  • An illustration looking out at an urban environment from inside of a standpipe

    What Are You Doing Here?

    By Gerard McKeown
    July 26, 2023 Gerard McKeown
    Tom Podmore / Unsplash In this creative nonfiction from London, a question once asked suspiciously becomes a question a man asks himself as a way of checking in. The first memory I have…
  • A chocolate pie with the words Have a Safe Trip written on it in frosting

    The Little Despairs of Despedidas

    By Andrew Zubiri
    June 28, 2023 Andrew Zubiri
    Photo composite by Parker Buske / Source image by Marcin Jucha on Adobe Stock A Filipino writer now living in Boston explores a tradition of farewell parties that share felicitations to send o…
  • A photograph of a Chevy Suburban covered in snow

    Old Cars

    By Marlene Olin
    May 4, 2023 Marlene Olin
    Photo courtesy of the author A late winter storm and a decaying Chevy Suburban underscore the emerging fragilities of life in their seventies for a writer and her husband. We bought the…
  • A photograph of a yellow telephone sitting on a wood table next to a blue couch

    Landlines

    By Marlene Olin
    January 17, 2023 Marlene Olin
    Annie Spratt / Unsplash Family news still travels, but not as it once did, when families huddled together over landlines. Though I was only seven, my memories are clear. It was 1960…
  • A diorama featuring two towering skeletal figures with hundreds of skulls creating the structure

    Bones

    By Lauren K. Watel
    May 4, 2022 Lauren K. Watel
    The Capuchin Crypt, beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, Rome. Credit: Dnalor 01 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 Surely I owe this particular take on Bone Baroque t…
  • A black and white photo of a closed book seen from above, looking at the pages

    By Marginalia et al.

    July 8, 2019 Nilufar Karimi
    Photo by cactusbeetroot / Flickr I take a book off the shelf in a small graduate office I wander into that resembles a bunker. The book is Cyclonopedia, by Reza Negarestani.…