Here’s a picture of me, my parents, and my brother Chris, back in 1982. They are dressed nicely, perhaps for church or some event. I am...

My 27-year-old mother is forever blasting down the bubbling asphalt of late-summer Mississippi in a sky-blue 1978 Mercury Cougar—so wide...

Stranger in the City (Abijan, Ivory Coast, 1998) I was unable not to take a second look when I saw them walk through the hotel lobby to...

Lana lit my hair on fire a couple weeks ago trying to light a stogie, so she crinkles her arm when we embrace to avoid a repeat singe....

A word from the author: As a trauma therapist I was invited to Harlem Hospital to talk to the ER staff, ambulance crews, and doctors and...

I think of the night I decided I couldn’t wait to not be thirteen anymore. It wasn’t a far drive; I only lived a few blocks up the...

From the sidewalk, my son and I watched the car in the opposite lane slow and execute a three-point turn, evoking a distant memory of...

Harris was a bare patch in the middle of bigger patch of prairie, but folks were proud of being respectable, hard-working Christians....

In the first place, I resented everyone and his neighbor commenting on or even seeming to concern himself with my soul or lack of one....

I stuff the happy yellow silken blooms into my pocket, my bunny rabbit’s favorite treat. I let them grow wild in my yard and harvest them...

CW: violence I spent a year wanting to kill a preacher. Inside the mother’s body, a child began to grow. I imagined medieval...

ACT I The preamble. INT. ME - ALWAYS - UP UNTIL NOW I don’t call my mother’s father ’grandpa’. In English or Cantonese, it is a title...

Rippling refers to the fact that each of us creates—often without our conscious intent or knowledge—concentric circles of influence that...

The blood moon eclipse revealed its power on a Thursday night in November. I took the letters journals and stationery that plagued the...

1. I think often about Beethoven, the 1992 children's movie; a John Hughes creation about a clumsy yet lovable St. Bernard. I remember...

My mother blows smoke off the cast-iron comb she’s pulled from burning coals. She grabs the handle with a small raggedy hand towel...

CW: For readers of this story--This is a story about the early 1990's. It is about a rough time and place where strong and objectionable...

I. The Incredulity of Thomas An index finger points the way from beneath the altar at Santa Croce Church in Gerusalemme, Roma. Postmortem...

Chemical Pregnancies Dear Diary, I was late for my period so I took a home pregnancy test. Could I just be imagining the second line on...

At 5 pm I toss my bag and purse onto the table and crash into the cushy chair. The large windows that face the parking lot offer enough...