With Halloween still a week away, Tinker’s Cove, Maine, is already gearing up for its Merrie Olde Christmas extravaganza. Undeterred by a nasty doxxing incident, Chamber of Commerce Chair Corney Clark is teeing up costumes, carolers, and contests, capped by a plum pudding bake-off. But visions of sugarplums don’t have sweet associations for all residents. […]
“Every movie romance needs an Obstacle, a reason the characters don’t naturally fall into each other.” In the off-screen romance between actors Juniper Castillo and Kai Laramie, the obstacle is a moving target. Juniper notices early on that as flirty and forward as Kai is, he seems “closed off to a romantic connection”; that turns […]
On the eve of his Full Horn Ceremony, young faun Panmiel is playing in the forest when he meets Hobkin, a satyr. They spend the day together, learning about their differences, but also their similarities. Despite being told all his life that satyrs are evil, Pan can’t help but see Hobkin as a friend who […]
“Hank takes this stuff seriously,” hunter Randy Newberg stresses in Buck, Buck, Moose’s 10th anniversary foreword. Over nearly 300 pages of hunting stories, butchery guides, and recipes, readers will surely come to agree—Hank does take this stuff seriously. Shaw, a former restaurant cook, has made a career out of welcoming curious readers to the “wild food […]
The author explains in his introduction that he wanted to create pieces that “hung there in midair, suspended” without categorizing them as prose poetry, flash fiction, or micro-fiction. The very short entries presented here, sometimes only spanning a few pages, generally introduce a single character, capture one consequential moment, and culminate with an ironic reversal. […]
It’s August 2005 in Hartless, a small, dusty town in the Texas Panhandle. Kindergarten teacher Helen McCabe, in her mid-50s, has just finished the first week of school, hoping that her class will help her find her mooring again. Her husband, Hal, recently died in a car crash; he drove into an intersection, just as […]
“Mags MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. / And on that farm she had a…WHOLE LOTTA WORK TO DO!” With Old MacDonald taking a much-needed vacation, Mags decides to bring the farm into the 21st century. She begins ordering contraptions: a turbo jetpack with hose attachment to help water the crops (“with a SPRINKLE-SPRINKLE here, / […]
In the context of Black cultural life, writes English professor Freeburg, “soul is the one-word answer to this question: How did enslaved Africans turn America’s infamous failure into the greatest moral occasion of modern Western life?” Soul involves the formation of community, self-care, and self-help; delivering aid to others; and finding meaning in life—all enabling […]
Drawing from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sufism, each of the 66 chapters includes a dharma (teaching) and sadhana (practice) to help people shift from suffering to peace. The aim is to move from an agitated “monkey mind” and to instead “perceive what is truly happening in the freshness, juiciness, and awe of the present moment.” The […]
Scott and her family lived in various places in Canada and England. She and her younger sister spent much of their time with nannies and babysitters, since their parents were often traveling. As a girl, the author was known in her household for her “hysterical meltdowns,” generally stemming from an intense fear of being alone. […]