Nonfiction

The Golden Onsen: Bathing in Japan

by Nancy Penrose

Travel cleanses our character. Travel etches its reality on our soul. — Steve Zikman The water is dark, a hot swirl of red and brown. I step in and my feet disappear. As I feel for the edges of steps … Continue reading

A Day on The Gauley

by Thorpe Moeckel

1. Pennsylvanian sandstone, Phil says when I ask. He’s on the river a few feet beside me. We’re cruising with the current. We’re stroking our canoes forward. For a moment, Phil’s motion reminds me of a power hitter striding to … Continue reading

Writing While Ill: Pathography, Then & Now

by Thomas Larson

1/ Virginia Woolf begins her 1926 essay, “On Being Ill,” with a doozy of a sentence. Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered … Continue reading

Bartleby the Scrivener Occupies Wall Street

by Roberta Bienvenu

Last fall when reports of the encampment in Zuccotti Park first appeared in the newspapers, I thought of Bartleby.  I had been thinking of him for a while.  I had been seeing Bartleby-like figures, forlorn and silent, wandering the halls … Continue reading