Sunday, August 4th 2019 – Peach Pit Mother

Now, in front of the farmer and the market and God and the fruit, my mother looked at me expectantly for an answer. Or maybe for permission? She hadn’t asked me a question, but the squint in her eyes demanded an answer, or maybe she was wondering, praying, that I understood, that I would say the exact right thing.

– Harrison Geosits, “Peach Pit Mother”

I knew I wanted to share this essay as soon as I read it. Harrison Geosits brings the reader gently and intimately into his relationship with his mother as it takes new shape. Because they raise us, adults seem fully formed in the imagination, always having been as they are. After finding an “easy rhythm” with his mother during his college years, this essay explores a moment of vulnerability on her part, and recognition on his. I loved the fullness of both Geosits and his mother as characters in this short piece; if you like family dynamic stories, this one is for you. I won’t spoil it any further.

Read “Peach Pit Mother,” published by Jellyfish Review, here.

Advertisement

Thursday, August 1st 2019 – The Bottle City of God

I am, of course, committing my classic Gentile mistake once again: ascribing too much power to God and not enough to humanity. Zion can only come to a place completely ready for it. The streets had free will paved right into them from the start: You can U-turn. You can turn away. People chose cars, not God’s blueprint.

– Karrie Higgins, “The Bottle City of God”

First published in 2014 in the Cincinnati Review, Karrie shared this essay on her blog in 2018 and I encountered it a year later. Part exquisite portrait of a strange city, part memoir of the author’s discovery of her “extrinsic asthma,” asthma that doesn’t come from within the body, and part study of design, intention, choice, and belief, “The Bottle City of God,” braids all these pieces together, and more, rivetingly.

Read “The Bottle City of God,” on Karrie’s blog, here.

Sunday, July 28th 2019 – The Crane Wife

I need you to know: I hated that I needed more than this from him. There is nothing more humiliating to me than my own desires. Nothing that makes me hate myself more than being burdensome and less than self-sufficient.

— CJ Hauser, “The Crane Wife”

Ten days after she called off her engagement, CJ Hauser was studying the whooping crane on the gulf coast of Texas. On the Paris Review blog, a gorgeous braided essay about a difficult decision and why it had to be made. This essay has gotten a lot of attention in the literary community, so it’s a little more on the beaten trail than I had planned on starting this project with, but it completely deserves the attention, and yours. Enjoy.

Read “The Crane Wife,” here.

Hello!

Hello there! I’m Anna, a reader, writer, and educator tired of hearing, “I don’t have time to read much these days,” when I ask people what they’re reading.

Every Thursday and Sunday, starting this Sunday, I’ll be sharing and linking you to beautiful fiction and creative nonfiction published by literary journals and accessible online.

My mission is for readers who are overworked, tired, busy, or unfamiliar with small journals to find something new, short, and lovely to read when they have some spare time.

I’ll be sharing stuff I love and that other readers and writers recommend. I want to highlight as many writers and journals as possible!! I’m not trying to say I think anything is “the best” piece published this week/month/year, just sharing great stuff out there one piece at a time.

In my dream life, I would be able to post something every day, but I think I’m going to have to work up to that.

Thanks for reading – look out for the first story I can’t wait to share on Sunday, July 28th. If you would like to, please subscribe!