Creative Nonfiction, #25, Winter 2022-23

My Short and Tragic Tap Dancing Career, John Backman  
Help, Please!, Melissa Greenwood  
Descended into the Carnage, James Morena  
Asthma, Rina Palumbo
My Bike, Mike Wilson  

Featured Artist 
Colleen Anderson

John Backman has a difficult memory of disappointing his mother; except he doesn’t remember it. He remembers the feeling of something he may have invented himself. What, if anything, actually is real about what he feels, and can he give his three-year-old self a way out after 60 years?

Melissa Greenwood‘s narrative is less than 400 words and still may leave a reader out of breath. She brings us into a chaotic home and tells us, “at a precocious 10, I’m the only adult in this house.” This is a difficult but important reminder of the heavy burdens children bear in domestic violence situations, and how profoundly aware they are of being trapped on all sides.

James Morena. I don’t even know how to begin to give you a heads up (pun intended) on this wild, weird, funny, and a little heartbreaking narrative of a little boy who opened the door to a big surprise. When you’re home with no one but your dog, and someone insists you open the door and you do and…..well, you just have to read it and find out.

Rina Palumbo crafts a frightening scene, sharing a bedroom with her asthmatic sister. Nights would start out well, and but morph quickly into distress. This piece really got to me. Rina brings us into that room, into that fear, and into the desperation of self-harm to escape emotions.

Mike Wilson writes about his bicycle, and so much more. Boy meets bike, boy bonds with bike, boy loses then is reunited with bike. But something has changed. This is a beautiful narrative about love, loss, and growing up.

Finally, I am delighted to share the nature art photography of Colleen Anderson. Colleen is a writer, songwriter, and graphic designer in my hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. I always enjoy her textured imagery and I hope you will, too.

We will be back on February 1, 2023, to open submissions for our Spring issue. Thank you for reading and for sharing the online literary landscape with us.

EDG