Ruminations in a Side Room
/…a compassionate glance, the nurse held open the door, and Juliette stepped past her into the room. She heard the door close behind and the tapping of hard shoes fading as the nurse walked…
By Peter Jonathan
Read MoreWriting Gallery
What's Up. Liberty
/Is Liberty just a fancy word for, "nothin' left to lose"?
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…friends, welcome This is What’s Up radio broadcasting from big, beautiful, clear-channel WALTZ. I’m Tuck Avery, and by my side, Buzz Belton, the brother I never wanted. We wanna know what Liberty means to you. Buzz: Liberty’s sounds complicated and dull. It’d be more fun…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreCarried a Razor Everyday
/Don't know what the argument wuz about. Don't even know there wuz an…
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…know what the argument wuz about. Don’t even know there wuz an argument. Might’a been just bar talk. The big guy got riled by somthin’ I didn’t say. That’s what I think. Couldn’t make sense of it. It all happened so fast. He started pushin’ me around, screaming somthin’ or other, don’t know what, slappin…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreLivin' with the Animals
/My first friends were animals. Now in my old age, my remaining friends are animals.
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…in my old age, my remaining friends are animals. In between I’ve had many wonderful friends that were human. Some were pals, some were business partners, some were lovers. Some I knew well, some I barely knew, others were very dear to me. They’re mostly…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreRichard III
/Neither hero, nor quite the monster he was said to be, He died a King. He died courageously.
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…corpse, naked and torn by wounds, was bound across a horse, with his head and long hair hanging down, bloody and hideous, and in this condition borne into Leicester for all men…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreJeanne D' Arc
/Who can say no to an archangel?
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…is probably better known by the anglicized version of her name: Joan of Arc. Her story has been told often. It always bears repeating. I knew her name before I knew anything else about her. As a five-year old, I wondered why a can of kidney beans would be called…
By K L. Shipley
Read MoreCourageous Women
/My mother and my aunt surprised me one day with an act of courage.
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…took courage to cross the ocean in the early part of the twentieth century and begin a new life. My mother, Astrid Paulina Johansson Malmquist, was a woman of courage. My aunt, Amalia Johansson Lindquist, was another. They were two of the eleven children who grew up on my grandparents' farm outside of Asarum in the province of Blekinge, in southern…
By Anita G. Gorman
Read MoreAddressing Racism in Myself Before Talking to My Kids
/I always thought of myself as a "non racist," a person who knew it was wrong to judge someone by the…
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…disbelief, hoping what I was watching was just a dream, but no, it was a nightmare. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen as the reporter in Baltimore walked around the city. Freddie Gray had recently died in police custody and the city of Baltimore was rioting. I watched as the reporter walked past the charred vehicles…
By Kathleen Kempert
Read MoreAll the Lonely People
/You can't always get what you want.
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…do they all come from? That’s the refrain from Paul McCartney’s song: Eleanor Rigby. Lyrics, melody, and string arrangement, combine to make it one of the most interesting songs of the twentieth century. Most people think of it as a well-crafted pop song. I think it’s more. The churning throb of the beat evokes…
By K. L. Shipley
Read MoreMy Brain Is Being Drained By The Plumber
/Florence J. Mauchant was born in Paris, France and has been a New York City…
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…week of July, the city of Manhattan is oddly empty, the sky is spotless blue and the sun is providing just the perfect amount of warmth. Instead of being uplifted by these auspicious elements of my summer environment, I feel like I have been flattened into a thin, energy-less form, by one of those road…
By Florence Mauchant
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