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"Löyly Sow-na" by Josh Malerman

The greatest horror (hope?) just might be facing the truth about yourself.

"Daughter of a Ghost" by Leslie Jamison

"This is why fairy takes are more forgiving than sentimental novels. They let darkness into the frame. Finding darkness in another story is so much less lonely than fearing the darkness is yours alone."

Representation matters in more ways than one; it pushes back against the internal "imposter" story we tell ourselves.

"The Long Trick" by Leslie Jamison

This is a story of longing, yearning for memories and futures and places that aren't your own and may never be. It's about how wondering, 'what if?' can pull you away from your own presence and the people who love you. It's being thankful for those who show you how to rest your weary searching feet, to choose to remain when you feel compelled to run.

"Return to Bear Creek Lodge" by Tananarive Due

There's a reason Ms. Due is one of my favorite horror writers; her suspense pulls at you from the start, dragging you toward the inevitable. You couldn't fight it if you tried. Add to that the cultural and personal significance of her characters and their trauma, and her stories should be required reading. This story of a creature in the snow will linger.

"If there are Americans who are good, who will not cheat and kill, why do they not send after these robbers and punish them? And how is it they make laws with cheat? It was the American law which took Temecula away from [Native Americans], and gave it to those men! The law was on the side of the thieves... It is a people that steals, and that kills for money."

"[Americans] have power, and great riches... Money is all that they think of. You get money, they will commit any crime, even murder."

"Maximum Exposure" by Leslie Jamison

What's beyond the edges of a photograph, a map, a painting? What happened before or after the story inside the book or the snapping of the photo? Where do I come from? What will my children's children's children be like? If you've ever felt compelled to understand the entire picture, flaws and all, this essay will resonate with you.

"Dry and Ready" by Glen Hirshberg

This one beautifully illustrates the heaviness of grief, both for the lost and the living who have lost themselves. It contrasts the joy and regret that memory brings and links those contrasts to the gifts and burdens we pass through the generations.

"The Ones He Takes" by Benjamin Percy

Santa brings joy to children on Christmas...at least most children. But someone must build the toys.

"The Importance of a Tidy Home" by Christopher Golden

How tidy is your home? Prepare it for the new year, or the Schnabelperchten of Salzberg will eviscerate you! I've worried about cleaning my home for visitors, but this story takes the horror of an unexpected visit to a new level.

"Up in Jaffna" & "No Tongue Can Tell" each feature a civil war-- our very own Civil War and the more recent one in Sri Lanka. Each one examines our warring desires to both witness and ignore the tragedies and traumas of war...to never forget and to sweep away the rubble to build hotels and encourage industry...to feel empathy and to disassociate.

This one's going to be amazing...I can tell. What society and people do and have done to children is unconscionable.

"Sweet Everlasting" by M. T. Anderson

Climax is a peak for a reason---whoever reaches it must, necessarily descend. If they do not, if they must forever remain at this great height, it will lose all of its luster. So be careful what you wish for! Pleasure cannot last forever, there must be pain and discontent; otherwise, there is no pleasure after all.

"Sim Life" by Leslie Jamison

This essay traverses the complex human desire to both inhabit life and leave it, to experience life in all of its trials and to live a life with different challenges, to simultaneously escape life and to live it more fully than our circumstances allow. I realize that I have lived many 'second lives' in the pages of books or through the eyes of others in an endless scroll.

"A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes" by Jason Reynolds

Collecting memories, the everyday ones & the big ones, can so powerfully change the experience of losing someone. In this story, a young person collects stories for their grandmother who is forgetting things slowly due to Alzheimer's, and while, ostensibly, they're doing it for Grandma, it's also a powerful way to keep her even when she's gone.

"We Are Looking For Home" by A.S. King

For contentment, for belonging, for acceptance, for uniqueness. We so often fail, doomed in our efforts by inner doubts and demons that lie and bully and mislead. We covet confidence and surety, and that same confidence and surety leads to self doubt. It's hard to break out of this loop, but home is on the outside.

"Layover Story" by Leslie Jamison

Other people's lives "hold more than [we] could ever possibly see," so keep showing up for each other "with grace."

"We Tell Ourselves Stories in order To Live Again" by Leslie Jamison

Many voracious readers argue that stories offer travels to places, periods, and perspectives we haven't and may never experience in our lives. Here, Jamison assets the same about other stories we tell ourselves--the real or imagined or misremembered narratives that build our identity. In essence, we are ourselves, and we are all interconnected.

"Pool Bandits" by G. Neri

It's a 1970's summer, heat visible in the air and not a raindrop in sight. Kids roam the streets, the beaches, the ditches, and the backyards of people on vacation. There's freedom in sneaking into fences, draining pools to share the bowl...full days of trying and failing until you can fly.

"La Concha" e.E. Charlton-Trujillo

A collection of jars, of titles, of small moments together in a closet of the self, protected from His abuse and a mother's seeming death. This one reflects life and poetry. Beautiful.

"Take It From Me" David Levithan
It's interesting to think about the things people collect and the emotion it brings them. David's collection, I think, made then feel connected to people and the world around him, while his friend's box of doubts served the same function as a journal. I wonder about my own collections, real or figurative, and what they give to me.

"52 Blue"
Nature is itself and separate from us, but what we feel for nature and because of nature... that's real, too. I enjoyed exploring this idea with Leslie Jamison, pondering what I've projected onto nature as a balm for whatever's going on inside me at the time and how my projection blocks potential truths. I also love what she says about metaphor and how it provides companionship, resonance, and kinship.

"Play House" by Anna-Marie McLemore

I grew increasingly more tense as the men arrived and grew in number, there to "protect" but, in fact, a threat to the two lone and beautiful women too polite to refuse to play hostess. I felt the threat in my bones, wanting to pull the protective circle of other women together, while in the story, the other women ripped the vulnerable women apart with their eyes.

"Uncertainty made their hearts beat faster until the primal drum of fear hammered their heads and necks" (58).

"The amount of pity you generate in others diminishes with every birthday. People...are like food: the closer you get to your expiration date, the less others are drawn to you" (29).

"The Mother knew that clandestine communal graves were like black holes that folks got sucked into and disappeared forever, and her husband had been thrown into one. He had been swallowed by the darkness, turned into a statistic, absorbed by the earth, vanished forever into a collective mass of decay and silence. Her husband had become empty space, a missing body, a mere memory" (17).

"They entered a strange stasis that prevented boredom, because action was always a bite away. When fishing, nothingness was full of possibility, quietness was a timeless inhalation before a scream, and inaction was just a fuse of to indeterminate length before an explosion" (10).

"When you unwittingly stuck your hand into the wasps' nest, you hadn't made a covenant with the devil to give up your civilized self with its trappings of love and respect and honor. It just happened to you. Passively, with no say, you ceased to be a creature of the mind and became a creature of the nerve endings; from college-educated man to wailing ape in five easy seconds."

"It had nothing to do with willpower, or the morality of drinking, or the weakness or strength of his own character. There was a broken switch somewhere inside, or a circuit breaker that didn't work, and he had been propelled down the chute willy-nilly, slowly at first, then accelerating."

"She was too tired to care. She had long ago decided that being a perfect mother meant always giving 100 percent and she had accepted that that was impossible."

So relatable... Reading this might be cathartic.