Nonfiction | JOYLAND

Mendocino

Fritz McDonald -

On a clear afternoon, Highway 101 rolls between mountains splashed with gold fields and stands of oak. My wife and I are in a...

Smiling Women, Frowning Girl

May-lee Chai -

"Mother always looked so womanly. I felt so thin in comparison. I didn't realize it was because she was always pregnant," my mother used...

A Note on Asking the Internet for Marriage Advice

Katiy Heath -

Is It Normal to Hate Your Husband? Oprah says that the answer may surprise you. Hating Your Spouse Isn't the Red Flag You Think It...

First Base at The Cheesecake Factory

Michelle Gurule -

Be aggressive. Be patient. Set your expectations high, but not too high. It was December 2015. I was twenty-four years old, sitting in the...

How to Chop an Onion

Matthew Medendorp -

“One real thing is closer to God than all the diagrams in the world” – Robert Farrar Capon It starts underground. Twofold, really, the growing...

Violet

Melissa Seley -

Breezes blowing through a bougainvillea vine I’d recently trained to the eaves, its afterglow crimsoning the painter and me standing in the open doorway...

Playing

Carolyn Ten Eyck -

The night after our first kiss, my band played covers for hours in the campus bar. It was packed, humid in the way a...

Glazer Ball, Gym Class, a Locker Room, and a Bathroom

Davon Loeb -

At Indian Springs Memorial, Mr. Glazer had been a gym teacher for over twenty years. He might have been in his fifties but maybe...

kinder garden

Imogene Mahalia -

I know myself in relative terms. The sun is yellow, as am I; her blood is red, and so is mine. This time of...

Last of the Long Hot Days

Allie Rowbottom -

Los Angeles, September 2020. Five years since my mother’s death and I want to see mountains, feel ocean on the air. My husband, Jon, and...