The historical society sells a gilded ornament each year. This, of John, of Jack, shows his eyes downcast. His widow chose the image for the portrait, after enduring faithlessness, blood, and grief. Her black veil burns with heat, not chill. What is preservation if not a gathering of lost souls, their dreams, their crimes, all […]

Hillbilly Selfie: JD Vance’s Provocative Storytelling

Note: I started writing this post about 4 years ago when I first read Vance’s memoir. Since then I’ve listened to the author read the book on tape, and I’ve seen Ron Howard’s revisioning of the narrative on Netflix. Below are 2 photographs of the same woman. She took them both of herself, but hundreds of […]

Polish Resistance, Regardless

Like so many people with long roots in West Virginia, I have the lovemaking, hard stepping, fight starting, large drinking, genetic and cultural legacy of Ireland and Scotland in me. It doesn’t matter much that we never owned that or planned events around it when I was young; I know now that ignoring the woven […]

Favorite Places

Brevity's Nonfiction Blog
Burlington Writers Workshop
Hippocampus Magazine
Longridge Review
River Teeth: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction
Still: The Journal

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