
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

It’s terrible for a mother to ask herself that question about her own daughter, a girl of twenty. But I couldn’t talk to anyone about it; Riccardo and Michele would react violently. Men always say, “You’ll be sorry if my daughter, you’ll be sorry if my sister …” They say, “I won’t tolerate it.” It’s easy to say “I won’t tolerate it.” Yet things hap
... See moreAnn Goldstein • Forbidden Notebook
Fear, vanity and selfishness make people do terrible things to each other. For thousands of years these have been the engines of stories. But there was no discernible arc to this particular one; Susie would have to be a good writer to make it fill two hundred pages. ‘Is this something you would really like to write about?’ I asked. ‘It depends on w
... See moreMiranda France • The Writing School
alcoholic; a shower and four walls provided to me right now. The line between words and actions quickly becomes blurred, so we don’t usually speak of our deepest doubts, or acknowledge that we could cause our own undoing. Today I don’t care. I can think of no reason to continue,
Caroline Van Hemert • The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds
It is surprisingly easy to forget what you have witnessed, the horrifying image or the voice speaking the unspeakable, in order to exist in the world we must and we do forget, we live in a state of I know but I do not know.