Category: September-October 2020

How to be a Writer in Residence by Brad Wetherell

The only other adults you’ll see most days will be the two dorm parents—both named Chuck.

“Should I mark ‘Earth’ for ‘Which planet in our solar system can support life?’” the boy asks.

Watch closely as I walk the three blocks up to Horton’s Hardware by myself while my parents are at work.

The shower in my motel room heats quickly, so I don’t have to be wet, cold and naked for long.

Ten seasons of gui hua have passed since I last walked with Uncle.

Mr. Poteat was a fool, and Anne-Elizabeth Tilley and I knew it, even if our classmates didn’t.

He called the nitroglycerin tablets his “lifesavers,”… He kept them, always, within reach.

My mother and I haven’t talked about those years in years: the dark years when we slept on her pillowed mattress with the bedroom door locked….

The medium is the visible section of frothy milk resting atop the overflow, the mode is the barista’s deliberate wrist twisting…..

They remind me: For over a hundred years we have been building for this country.

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