These pieces were originally published between March 17, 2026 and June 11, 2026.
Featured Writing
Memoir Posts
From Making Space: Unapologetically Me
18 – Innerlijk Zelfportret by Menke Biewenga I stare restlessly at the pink floor lamp beside my bed. Sometime before tomorrow, I am supposed to create “een innerlijk zelfportret”—an inner self-portrait. Why do Social Work students have to practice everything they learn on themselves first? I suppose this is one…
Living in the Shadows: Life After MST
by John Gregory Evans This story contains suicide and sexual assault. For some life hangs in the balance. Living in the shadows is never easy. Life after Military Sexual Trauma is not easy, either. But some of us reach that ideated pinnacle where suicide and attempts become an everyday experience….
Ninety-ninth Percentile
by Michael McGrath When I received my first report card in the fall of 1967, I was afraid to bring it home. Unlike most of my friends, who had a collection of As, Bs, Cs—and the occasional D—to show for their efforts, the only grade featured prominently on my card…
The Courage to Rekindle a Dream
By Jennifer Ward As a little girl, I was a dreamer. I wanted to be so many things—a teacher, a lawyer, an author, a fashion designer, an architect. Amid these dreams, I always imagined I would be happy doing something I loved. Still, during my first year of college, it…
Breaking Down
By Loren Mayshark A blustery, white January day on Dutch Hollow Road in western New York. I was a benchwarmer freshman on the junior varsity basketball team in a school with about two hundred students. This meant the team was composed of both freshman and sophomore players, and I’d had…
Flying Nuns
By Pamela Kaye (This piece first appeared in the online publication MixedMag.) My wife and I finally settled into a financially and physically secure retirement. Two years ago, we bought our forever home, unpacked boxes that had been in storage, and eased into the next chapter of life; for me,…
1001 Toad and Bird Calls
By Roberta Schine When I was a junior at Central High School, Mike Ventura invited me to Cornell University’s homecoming weekend. We had gone out a few times when he was still in Bridgeport. Once, he took me to Beardsley Park Zoo. Another time we sat in the Merritt Canteen…
The Shot
by Nadja K. McGlinn The nurse in the cubicle where my husband and I got our second shots of the COVID-19 remarked that everyone she’d injected that day had the scar from a smallpox vaccination, meaning we were old—old enough to have still gotten them as children. She noted I…
My Female Silent Hero
by Jessica Hensley Students at Southern New Hampshire University were invited to submit essays in celebration of women’s contributions to society, with a focus on a particular woman who inspired the writer to share her story. This essay was chosen to be published in The Penmen Review on International Women’s…
Rewiring During a Pandemic and Beyond
by Mark Howard In 2017, I left being a successful financial business owner to become a fifty-seven-year-old, first-year high school English teacher. I made that change because I wanted to. Now, countless thousands are being faced with a career change because of the pandemic. In my little town, there are…