Did you ever going swimming with naked strangers?

As a little kid, I had a weird relationship with swimming. Due to a combination of fear and my mother’s schedule conflicts, I didn’t attend lessons at the city pool as had my older brothers. They started at the age of five and got the hang of it fair...

Read More
Jan 26, 2022
Why is reading books like going on a date?

When I was in ninth grade, a new kid moved into my neighborhood — we’ll call him “Joe” — and I was hopeful that we’d be friends. There weren’t any boys my age in the neighborhood; just two girls, and I was terrified of girls. Joe, being the new kid,...

Read More
Jan 13, 2022
Do you like a story about murder around the holidays?

I was sitting in the back seat of our station wagon, behind my father who was behind the wheel. My mother, riding shotgun, flipped through a magazine. My two older brothers sat beside me in the back seat. We’d been on the road for an hour and it wasn...

Read More
Dec 24, 2021
To be 19 and not sure what to do with your life…

I decided I wanted to be a writer my second year of college. I was in the engineering school and engineering is not usually a path to literature, but, I entered the Hopwood Awards, which is a literary prize at the University of Michigan. Arthur Mille...

Read More
Dec 17, 2021
Beware what you wish for, as it might just come true…

Did you ever have a crazy day when expectations are flipped, and just when you think one thing is going to happen, the day flips again? Of course you have. If you’re paying attention, it probably happens every day in one way or another. But sometimes...

Read More
Dec 13, 2021