Creative nonfiction - Short Edition - page 2 - all works

Creative Nonfiction

Philosophical Reflection 3 min

Do You Think the Dinosaurs Went to Heaven?

Yesterday it was sixty degrees outside, so I took my bike out for the first time all winter. I biked across the river to return a pair of jeans I'd bought online the week earlier; it turns out that ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Reflection 2 min Mature Audience

Boxing

Jared Levy

When Wally asks me to punch him in the stomach, I try not to hold back. I let it rip. I set my feet like he taught me to, draw back my fist, and deliver a blow to the spot he's pointing at—right above ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection Society 4 min Mature Audience

The Chair in the Bathroom

Rachael Zacks

Nature is calling. As a new intern in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) my bladder is not yet trained to resist this instinctual human need. The team has been rounding for six hours, discussing ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Society 5 min Mature Audience

Where Have You Gone, Chu Hua?

Kenneth Margolin

I met Mia for the first time at my tennis club. A small Chinese woman with dark brown eyes and short-cropped black hair, she greeted me with a heavy Chinese accent.
"Are you Ken?" she asked.
To my ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 1 min

Falling into New Year

Susan Lendroth

Autumn's here—Happy New Year!

Not for me, that pallid substitute in January with its noisemakers and forgotten resolutions. My calendar resets annually with the opening of classroom doors, no ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 4 min Mature Audience

[see: n, below]

Carrie Barker

abecedarian a novice learning the rudiments of a subject, a beginner or amateur; a student; straightforward, simplified; in literature, a work arranged in order according to the alphabet, often ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Philosophical 5 min Mature Audience

Sleepless in Any City

Janine Zeitlin

Out in the world, no one sleeps. No one, no one.
No one sleeps.
—Federico García Lorca, "Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne)"

Madrid 2007. Sometime after 3 am. In six hours, I'll be ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Society Reflection 5 min

Where Magic Goes to Die

Keturah McQuade

My hands used to create magic. I think with the increasing demands of adulthood, they've had their spark pulled right out of them. My little sister's hands still glisten with it, but I fear he ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 3 min

How Time Works

Haley Swanson

After my father toured what would become our neighborhood in Fairfax, California, he knocked on the nearest door and asked the man who answered if it was nice living there.

That man told me this ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Reflection 3 min Mature Audience

How to Eat Crabs with Your Mother-in-Law

Kaitlin Barker Davis

1)

At exactly 5:50 p.m., your mother-in-law will anxiously announce, "Someone needs to go get the crabs right now!" When you first met her, shortly after meeting her son, you called her by he ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Society Reflection 2 min

Neutral Masks

Eleanor Garran

We have to wear blank black clothes to mask class so our selves don't intrude.

People with hair in their face must pin their hair off their face.

When you're wearing black and have your face ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 2 min Mature Audience

Catch: A Memory in Three Fragments

Kat Moore

1

It was 1983 and I was six years old, riding between my father and brother in my father's Oldsmobile, back when front seats stretched from door to door. My father drove, and my brother, who was ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Science Reflection Society 4 min Mature Audience

Regeneration

Brenda Miller

It looks like a ghost heart. And it feels a little like Jello.

—Doris Taylor, bioengineer

I.

On the radio show Speaking of Faith, researcher Doris Taylor is telling us how to build a new ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection Society 3 min

Seeing

Mathina Calliope

I was still uncivilized. Among the Starbucks Wednesday morning commuters who awaited lattes while wearing ties, pencil skirts, and blowouts, I stood out. Air-dried hair frizzed from my head, baggy ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Reflection 1 min Mature Audience

Almost

Lisa Christensen

For over four years I worked at a newspaper in Tooele County, a rural desert county in Utah. I had a coworker once say the county is a collection of almosts—it could be almost a fantastic hiking ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Society Reflection 4 min Mature Audience

Attempt

Lucas Zuehl

A pale, blonde woman in pink scrubs first asks my name and birthday. She has an accent that sounds Scandinavian, and she looks past the tears in my eyes as I answer her questions. She leads me down ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection Philosophical 5 min Mature Audience

I-80 Fathers

Garrett Elms

It had been silent for several seconds and I knew I had to say something.
"So we're not Italian?"
It was the only question I could think of. I could tell my mom wanted more but was relieved I ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Reflection 4 min

Domino Beach

Marie Ivantechenko

The familiar scent of earl gray tea sends me back to my grandma's living room. When I was in elementary school, I'd come over multiple times a week and we'd sit on her off-white couch drinking black ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Society 4 min Mature Audience

One Close Call

Sophia Hua

It was after 10:30 at night. I was surrounded by towers of nondescript apartment complexes over 20 stories high, though the middle courtyard was graced with beautiful trees hiding maze-like ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Society 4 min Mature Audience

America The Green

Sunny Lancaster

We drove south on York Road, passing the large brick house that always stole my attention. I peered past my mother's arms and the steering wheel, to take another long, unblinking look. The exterio ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Do You Think the Dinosaurs Went to Heaven?

Boxing

The Chair in the Bathroom

Where Have You Gone, Chu Hua?

Falling into New Year

[see: n, below]

Sleepless in Any City

Where Magic Goes to Die

How Time Works

How to Eat Crabs with Your Mother-in-Law

Neutral Masks

Catch: A Memory in Three Fragments

Regeneration

Seeing

Almost

Attempt

I-80 Fathers

Domino Beach

One Close Call

America The Green