When I was a kid, nothing was better than listening to my Aunt Thelma’s stories. She’d take humiliating awful situations and transform them into eye-popping, comic-tragic tales. Her pain was our gain. Stories bang around my head and crowd my mind. I’m stuffed with ‘what if’ and ‘why did s/he do that?’ As a child, … Read more
I woke up (just moments ago) with the proverbial pounding three am heart. I had a nightmare about trying to convince unresponsive authorities about young girls being attacked. The specifics of my nightmare don’t matter (is there anything more boring than hearing someone recount their dreams point by point? It happened in my house, but different—ya … Read more
By Dell Smith Beyond the Margins finally persuaded Dell Smith’s good friend Ryan Gosling to take time out of his busy schedule as an Internet meme to shine a little love our way. Give it up for a very special…Literary Ryan Gosling. Continued at Beyond The Margins
“My definition (for myself) of a working title is: A title that doesn’t work.” Robin Black Picture having a baby. You named that baby so soon after conception. Dear little Lev. It’s the Russian version of your father’s name. It has great meaning. Birth! The nurse places him in your arms. She smiles. Than … Read more
“It happened this way: I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out. This didn’t happen easily, or simply, but if I had to pinpoint it, I’d say the relationship started to fall apart the night I nearly killed my oldest friend’s two daughters.” … Read more