A New Kind of Literary Pulse

It has been over eight years since my father has left his presence with us and on Earth. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer and his life was taken within one year of his diagnosis. My father was an ... [+]

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 ... [+]

We may not all don crowns on our heads, but we all clothe ourselves in underwear. Underwear, I would argue, grants one as much power as—if not more power than—the jewel-encased headgear worn by ... [+]

Mama is inconsolable toward the end of our summer trips to Pakistan. It is as painful as watching a child getting ripped from the hands of her mother, except my mother is the child and her mother is ... [+]

I start the chess tournament by entering the skittles room, which unfortunately, is nothing like a rainbow. The skittles room is just a lounge with a water dispenser and is not a candy dispensary. I ... [+]

I am not, nor have I ever been, an artist.
I am and have always been, a dreamer.
When I was in 3rd grade I had a necklace from Claire’s, which, in plastic silver letters, labeled me ... [+]

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 ... [+]

I love puzzles. It’s calming to know that everything has its place, and that if I look hard enough I will find it. It doesn’t matter how many times I break a puzzle down; with a little effort, I ... [+]

Gemma’s Hair
In sixth-grade, Gemma’s assigned seat was next to mine. My only knowledge of Gemma was that:
1. she played the youngest von Trapp child in our school’s production of The ... [+]

Stretched out between the living room and the kitchen, straddling the fuzzy carpet and cold tile, lies the warm spot—a vent affectionately named for its delightful puff onto a child’s cold toes. I ... [+]

Memories are like puzzle pieces – tiny snippets of a bigger picture, meaningless in isolation. One piece might show half of a face; one memory might contain a happy moment. You can’t tell what a ... [+]

I remember visiting Heidi in San Francisco, when I was younger. She was so charismatic in those days, her icy blue eyes glinting mischievously as she lay sprawled out beneath the window, looking like ... [+]

Today I had orange eggs for breakfast.
I thought it was strange so I looked it up and found that an especially happy chicken lays eggs with orange yolks. It saddened me to think of the countless ... [+]

It’s fate that I grow up with a lovebird, or perhaps God’s idea to teach me a lesson. I remember watching national geography introducing parrots when I was a kid. Not only do they have an adorable ... [+]

“You’re different—you’re not milquetoast,” the tall boy I was stumbling along Richmond Road with told me on the walk back to my room. He couldn’t see, but had I scrunched up my face ... [+]

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 ... [+]

This story isn’t a cute story or a quaint story, but it is a true story that I can’t quite make sense of. There was traveling and there was cancer, and then there were snail shells that have to ... [+]

One of my earliest memories is running around my great-grandmother’s backyard catching fireflies. Grandma Marie lived in Virginia, and, at least once a year, we would make the nine-hour journey to ... [+]