Neither MFA Nor NYC
My favorite story from my college years wasn’t one I heard in a Creative Writing workshop. I didn’t hear it in any lit seminar…
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The Ism and the Alcohol
A year and a half ago, I published my first essay on addiction. You’d think having gotten sober at age seventeen would have been fodder…
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The Storm and the Beast
The morning before the typhoon hit, I sat down for a Skype date with my parents: my morning coffee and their evening wine…
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On the Far End of Reality: Jennifer Percy’s Demon Camp
Everywhere he went, he saw them, their burned bodies, watching him. These were the days after the war. Demon Camp is not really about…
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A Story About Hanoi
This is a story about moving to Hanoi. This is not a story about moving to Hanoi as an American.
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The Non-Bravery of Bearing Witness
It’s happening again: I’ve published a highly personal essay and well-intentioned readers are calling me brave.It’s meant as a compliment, I know…
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The Morning After
Paper gown and stirrups, white walls and a tray of gleaming tools: he held the syringe over me and said, “It’s a special kind of anesthetic…
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Goodbye to All This
So, I’m balking on my grad school apps. It’s not because they seem arduous—in fact, they seem surprisingly streamlined.
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The Tweakers or the Ghosts
You know you’re close when the fog thins out, when the dull pink behind cuts through, when the hills along the highway become vacant and brown.
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The Trip Inside
Warm summer night, window open, leaves cutting the streetlight into pieces that flickered across the bedroom floor. We lay on top of the sheets…
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The Antidote for Personal Narrative
A month from now, I will be a full-time kindergarten teacher. This was not part of the plan. The plan was… well, there wasn’t much of one…
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Still Moments in Vampire Town
There’s this moment of still right before it happens.” The first time, she was in a car. A man came to the window, reached in and held a machete under her friend’s chin.
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