Category: Non-Fiction

For many years, various concepts concerning familial/financial and racism have been an important part of pop culture. The 1959 play, “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and the 1971-1979 American sitcom, “All in the...

I referred to my childhood home by its address: 704 Spruce. We all did. I’m the third of the eight Allio children. Jimmy, Cathy, Marianne (me), Matt, Joe, Pat, Vince and Don. We were somewhat two families, the older three, and...

A single engine plane lifts up from San Luis above the sun-blocked windsock and circles out to Es Castell. It laps the local air—a dozen or so wide slow loops, hanging on the undercarriage of cloud as we look up after its...

My daughter lied to me again. On the bottom bunk of the bed she shares with her barely younger sister, her koala slipper covered feet tucked under her, she cried, preemptively, anticipating punishment. This would be the third...

You remember too much, My mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, Where can I put it down? ~ Anne Carson, The Glass Essay The metal accordion-gates with a giant padlock that looked as if it had been...

The only time I ever needed to be really, truly afraid was a particular September evening when I was held up at gunpoint at a Subway sandwich shop. I blame it on the fact I’d had a couple of cocktails earlier in the evening and...

The receptionist at my veterinarian came out of the office and handed me the last remains of our 14-year-old cat Fluffy Fluffy was the oldest of the four pets in our house Fala The Wonder Dog The 12-year-old Silky Terrier Ninja...

She has a mint wish that turns into a cloud, sheep, no–a porpoise that laughs at the crowd. She sleeps in a garden with fairies who flit from lilies to lilacs to purple tulips. She sips honey syrup through flower-wrapped...

Another Fourth and has passed and firework displays have lost their place as an acceptable social observance. Everything is on the table, and it is time to evaluate what we are celebrating. Recorded history lacks a scientific...

The heavens were white and full with snow. All it had to do was start falling, fat and fantastical, to fill up my world. It was a waiting game. I lay in bed looking out the window and searching the skies for an answer. When...

Sunday was the Lord’s Day in my household – that is to say, it was the only day that my father was usually at home and therefore he was treated like a god by my mother and grandmother. When he wasn’t working, he could usually be...

It was a large dreary room, with nearly 1,000 chairs in three sections divided by two aisles. All the men in one section were white, all the men in the next were black, and all the men in the third were Hispanic, but every one...