Learning the facts of life — I was eight years old when I found out the person I thought was my mother was not really my mother. Since I could talk, I’d been calling her Pinchy, like everyone else in my extended family but I thought she had given birth to me. I didn’t understand how…

Screams from the hilltop — Glen Mary stood on the high hill behind her home and screamed. It was 3 a.m. and anyone within range of her screams would probably still be sleeping. If they were awake they might assume they were hearing a wounded coyote, a lone wolf, a stray dog. Her screams were…

I got shot at while eating a sandwich with my bad boy boyfriend — I lived in New Orleans during my last two years of high school. I’d lived in Louisiana before but for the five years prior to moving to New Orleans, I’d been living in Connecticut. My Dad’s job had us moving around a lot when I was a kid. Being from…

6-word Story: Where do you want to travel… —

The high cost of liking it — Agnes Finnegan didn’t care for any sort of vulgarity. Females should be ladies and along with that came being ladylike. She did, however, like sex very much. …

at the Peach Blossom Flea and Farmer’s Market — A paved-over extant farm field on Peach Blossom Road changes every Friday morning. By 8 a.m. the cracked black asphalt becomes a small city of sellers' booths, the lined-off spaces occupied by cars, pick-ups, panel vans, and produce trucks. Once a guy who sold comic books arrived with his wares…

Here or not — Glenna couldn’t rouse herself. What was supposed to be a twenty-minute nap enveloped her and now she was stuck in the narrow space between awake and asleep. She could hear television in the background and birds were chirping outside her bedroom window. …

Suzzi will never sob or cry — Valentine’s Day was over. Suzzi Fitch woke up on February 15th with the worst feeling of having done something she could never take back. Worse, having done what she did would never go any better than how it went on February 14. It was terrible that she knew she was…

Keep your eyes peeled Nobody ever moved as slowly and methodically as David Sturgess. When Anita first introduced him to her brother Nate it became even more obvious. She could see Nate seeing David. “He’s really very slow, right?” asked Nate after watching David walk to their mailbox. But Anite…