With each passing kilometre along the E55, my hopes for picturesque Pomak villages nestled in the foothills of the Rhodope Mountains became snarled up in the plastic debris that littered ...
Then I stood and waited, silent, with my arms clasped behind me…I knew them by their smell, or the way they walked, or the cadence of their voice. ...
Having spent my entire life in a classroom, I finally graduated from university in 2015. Continue Reading Lessons from a Homeless Man
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Not that, at twelve, I believed in Saint Nick, but in my desperation I wasn’t above begging for a miracle. Continue Reading Love, Santa
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When he started walking, he would throw himself against walls. Continue Reading The Orphanage
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I still remember the unceremonious jostling and daily turf-battles that took place between tourists, townies and students in the beleaguered city centre. Continue Reading Circumventing the Crowds in ...
Rather than getting on another, we were to wait at the airport “until arrangements could be made.” Continue Reading Waylaid in Bucharest
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The charge of energy that keeps me alert – eyes open, mind going. Heart pumping. Dreams running. The quickening of the keys beneath my fingertips, an ethereal rainstorm pouring down ...
Throughout history, humans have sought to other groups we need to blame for all the problems in our society. Continue Reading The Left-Handed Phenomenon
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There was an edge to it, a whiff of violence and unhinged possibility. In those days, the style of Leftist street protest was carnivalesque Continue Reading A ...
That’s what she’s doing now, on the train, for her boyfriend. You could come in on it if you want. Continue Reading Some Sunken Cities
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I’m talking about a story that leaves a scar, an invisible scab that you return to weeks, months, and years after you’d read it. Continue Reading The ...
My grandma never spoke of the loneliness, never mentioned her loss. These unsaid things: these silences run in the family. Continue Reading The Familiar Absence of Words
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As the Jeeps rush down the highway, the old man, 73-year-old artist Alvaro Enciso, asks Alicia the names of the dead migrants. Continue Reading Dead Sites
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We are, as writers, the solar collector, the hybrid engine: we take energy from what surrounds us or our remembering of surroundings Continue Reading Writing, and Chaplin
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Unquestionably, my husband was right; there were and still are many things wrong with me. On top of my empty-nest crisis and puppy training, I live with chronic pain. ...
The pool of glowing crimson collecting under it, traces of the life my father had taken, stained the floor for months. It was an art, he said. Continue ...
I rocked back and forth, still holding onto the headrest, singing those lyrics, whether it was the chorus or verse or that freaky middle part with the wailing ...
But I didn’t swim and when we were all settled back around the fire, it seemed as if the shame clung wetly to me as we all dried off. ...
I arrived to find him sitting at the end of the bar. He was in his late thirties, a few years younger than me, cuter than his photos – a ...
