Creative Nonfiction
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Interior of Arbatskaya subway station in Moscow, Russia A woman sweeping the Moscow metro with a twig broom, a violinist playing a Beatles tune, and Chekhov: Philip Metres reflects on his... -
Translator’s note: The following text by Lin Yi-Han, like her novel Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise, is based on the theme of what it’s like to dwell in a body that carries traum... -
What Is Lost Can you picture the Argentine pampa? Flat fields, eucalyptus trees, a seemingly inoffensive landscape where a gray sunset might use your boiling blood to paint a path st... -
Transfer of Saint Remi relics, stained glass window in the Basilica of Saint Clotilde in Paris, France Named after a medieval French bishop, a transgender poet and essayist reflects on the... -
Photo courtesy of the author. for Juan José Hurtado, in memoriam For the narrator of the following crónica, 16mm films made by Kaqchikel villagers, flying ants, and dragonflies al... -
Gloria Blizzard and Jazz, Lake Ontario, Canada | Photo by Heidi Seirekidis This essay takes the form of a jazz standard. Nestled within the intro and outro are alternating A and B sections... -
Photo by by Elena Croitoru A countryside flâneuse in search of her deceased grandfather contemplates anchoring, wandering, and the small marks we leave on the world. How does one get... -
Photo provided by Nina Kossman A family’s history, Soviet history, and the role of a father’s stamp collection. Do you see this little metal box? It was surely unusual for its time—ju... -
“Demeter and Persephone Terracotta Myrina 100 BCE” by mharrsch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 A car racing down an empty steppe highway frames this essay from Kazakhstan today, as a mot... -
Illustration by Avery Holmes “Bakery Scent is a complex that cannot be dismantled or piecemealed,” yet the author still searches for that perfect madeleine, especially the one that can no... -
Photo by Krisztian Matyas / Unsplash “Awl” is from a series titled “Words I Did Not Understand.” Through memory—“the first screen of nostalgia”—and language, a writer pieces together her s... -
Photo: José Pablo Iglesias / Unsplash A girl learns her first lessons about cheating and death at her grandparents’ house, playing cards and Scrabble and listening to them read from the o... -
Photo: Luiz Guimaraes / Unsplash Follow a writer-flâneuse on a New York City odyssey, appreciating life’s smaller miracles in a city with many entry points. West 32nd / Broadway. The... -
PHOTO: Larah Vidotto In this piece of flash memoir, a writer reflects on stereotypes, how Ireland has changed, and an aunt stuck in time. Dear foreigner, tell me again how it is stere... -
Left: Kevin Chang and his brother Eliot at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago (2001). Right: The author's mother at Xitou National Park in Taiwan (1989). Courtesy of the aut... -
Iron, Uranium, Calcium, Gold, Praseodymium, Rubidium, Stontium, and Lead books. Illustration by Shayna Pond {CR} Chromium books that are all shiny surface.... -
Photo: Pixabay These two short meditations by Mexican writer Fabio Morábito both circle back to the same place: language’s confounding determination to elude our dominion.... -
Photos (left to right): Chris Davies, Eliza Bacani, Laura Gilmore These brief pieces form a meditation on our threshold for violences, great and small. They probe the ironic relationship... -
Photo: Maria Teresa Bologna Wang Anyi traces Shanghai in map and memory as she revisits its lanes, a mental flâneur. For almost the entire decade of the 1990s, I...
