They tell us to “write what we know” and if the we in this story is like me, we will laugh because our lives are boring. What could we say that would be worthwhile? We will know, on the inside, that this advice is not meant to…
Like most artists, I was very introverted in high school. Despite dealing with my mother dying from cancer, having serious hormonal issues, and not being born into a middle-class family like most of my peers, I tried to assimilate somehow. Who am I kidding?…
Introduction: “In the Land of Fire and Ice” When I learned the sixth NonFictioNow Conference would be held in Reykjavik, Iceland, it occurred to me that the trip would provide a perfect opportunity for a collaborative travel essay about a country that until recently…
School is in session at Columbia College, and the hallways are bustling. However, as of this writing it is 93 degrees in Chicago on this first morning of fall. All of which puts me in mind of a first school day years ago at…
The occasion of “Ode to Buddy Holly,” which occupies the entire second part of the new collection Swinging on a Star, is a journey by David Trinidad to Lubbock, Texas, birthplace of Charles Hardin Holley. The poem begins with a portent. When the poet was a small child, two planes collided in the air near…
On an afternoon late last summer, Punctuate sat down with fiction writer Patricia Ann McNair to talk to her about her new collection of essays, And These Are the Good Times (Side Street Press) and to talk about fiction, nonfiction, and their respective realities.…