Tag: Creative Writing
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Read Adult Books to Your Children
I started reading to the kids when they each were in the womb. All through their childhoods, after supper, we stayed seated around the table while I read for half an hour. Afterwards we hung out another twenty minutes talking about what just happened to Harry Potter, and whether or not he would find the…
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Writing Against the Taboos
I’m supposed to stay away from the taboos. This is both what my doctor and Michelle recommend. This is a time of rest, they say. They remind me that the tender weeks after a mental collapse need to be calm, with near-zero stress. I don’t disagree. Asylum means sanctuary, refuge, protection. True asylum is a…
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The Sudden, Psychotic Need for Jazz
About a week after the breakdown on Christmas day, in a moment of relative calm, I was sitting outside in my pajamas, staring at the property fence, and two things happened: I said, “Fuck this shit,” and I rearranged my room. The Fuck this shit wasn’t about my room—the room where I spend most of…
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Go to War, Save your Parents from “La Migra”
This is a short essay by Amanda Jones, a student at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles. When my boyfriend, David, decided to become a Marine, I was hurt, appalled, and powerless. I understood why he had to do it. His parents were from Guatemala. His father had received a deportation order. His mother…
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Marriage, Madness, and War
I fell in love because Michelle was gorgeous. I fell in love because we held long, intense conversations together. I fell in love because she was the most stable person I had ever met. I know that now. Back then, I was simply focused on her foxy-ness, and didn’t realize there was a subconscious voice…