Invisible Intersections: What it Means to Be a First-Generation College Student
It’s my senior year of high school. I’m in my one-bedroom apartment, which I share with six other family members – my two brothers, mother, father, and a brown…
Lessons from Writing The Elephant Girl
‘Ellen is telling lies AGAIN!’ it was an exasperated statement my siblings often made to shut me up. And when I was squealed on, my mother would materialise and…
Melissa Dassori on J.R. Silver Writes Her World
When I was in fourth grade, my homeroom teacher had a collection of New Yorker magazine covers that she used as prompts for creative writing assignments. The illustrated covers…
Lin Thompson on THE BEST LIARS IN RIVERVIEW
When I was twelve years old, I didn’t know why I wanted so badly to run away; I just knew that I did. I had an easy, comfortable life, a…
Mara Fitzgerald on INTO THE MIDNIGHT VOID
It’s not a spoiler to say that my first book, Beyond the Ruby Veil, ends in a dark place. The book is a young adult fantasy about a girl named…
Ben Guterson on THE EINSTEINS OF VISTA POINT
Over many years and on several occasions, I’ve been fortunate to visit a spectacular overlook—not merely charming but, I feel, charmed—high above the Columbia River on the Oregon border. The…
Natasha Friend on THE WOLVES ARE WAITING
Although THE WOLVES ARE WAITING is a work of fiction, I, like Nora Melchionda, grew up in a small college town in upstate New York. I, like Nora, felt safe…
Relying on Tweens to Save Our Species
Think back to March 2020, a time few of us will ever forget. While the world was locking down and bracing for an unprecedented situation, I was putting the…
The Me I Choose To Be: Black Children’s Lives Matter
Summer 2020. My mother and I let out a simultaneous heavy sigh. We had just been talking about the killing of George Floyd and other black people at the hands…
Writing Rock Bottom
My main character, Eve and I have a lot in common. We both lived in bodies very different than most folks. We both suffered years of chronic pain. We both…
Marcie Colleen on SURVIVOR TREE
I have yet to meet anyone who cannot recall exactly where they were when they learned of the attacks on September 11, 2001. But for a generation, those born around…
Marcy Campbell on “Something Good”
I’d been volunteering at my children’s elementary school for years, since my oldest started kindergarten. I knew every nook and cranny of that old brick building and came to know…