Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 87

A Review of Sufiya Abdur-Rahman’s Heir to the Crescent Moon

By Debbie Hagan

As I listened to Sufiya Abdur-Rahman read from her memoir Heir to the Crescent Moon, an old curiosity awoke within me. As a teenager, I’d wanted to know about Islam, beyond Malcolm X. However, living in Kansas City’s suburbs, in the 1970s (pre-internet), my research was limited to the resources of the town library. In other words, I had to live with the itch of many unanswered questions.

In Heir to the Crescent Moon, author Abdur-Rahman describes how she and her thre...

Sometimes Ted Lasso Isn’t Enough

By Lynn Haraldson

A few months ago, my partner and I were sitting at the workbench in his garage, sharing a beer and talking about nothing in particular, when a 1970s Cheap Trick song, “Voices,” came on the radio. I was humming along until, halfway through, a lyric stopped me cold. I looked over at the man I’ve been with for nine years—now paging through a Polaris catalog—and thought, Oh no! I’m in love with someone else!

In the many years since my husband died, I’ve earned a Ph.D. in g...

On Not Leaving My Writing at the Door

By Caroline Stowell

I first heard the phrase “leave it at the door” from my high school choir teacher. Forget about that math test you have next period, she’d say as she plunked out some bright chords. You’re going to leave that at the door. This space is just for singing. Years later, I was in my church’s basement when the leader of the weekly moms’ group asked, What is one thing you are going to leave at the door? I understood that she was giving us space, and then she was going to m...

In The Blink of an Eye

Last week, literary agent Lauren Spieller tweeted:

I've gotten 625 queries in the last 7 days.

— Lauren is open to queries on QM! (@laurenspieller) April 7, 2022

Ms. Spieller also said she’d answered 206 already. A writer acquaintance huffily responded this must be why he wasn’t connecting with an agent: Most queries probably aren’t even read.

I can empathize with the throes of discouragement when a creation you’ve spent years on isn’t finding a match…but that’s not accurate.

First...

Does the World Need Another Essay?

by Dorothy Rice

It’s Spring 2022, over two years since life was transformed by a global pandemic. Meetings, appointments, and vacations cancelled. Professional obligations and expectations suspended. My longest stretch of workaday limbo, aside from three maternity leaves.

“I think we should stay away for a while. You’re in that vulnerable age group,” my son said, over the phone during the initial quarantine. “We can’t risk anything happening to you.” Which meant no son, no grandkids...

A Review of American Seoul: A Memoir by Helena Rho

By Jennifer lang

It all starts by accident: a traumatic car crash one mundane morning after dropping off kids on the last day of summer camp in Pittsburgh. A pediatrician, Helena Rho stands up, rebuffs a paramedic telling her that she’s in shock, refuses the ambulance and ER, wrongly thinking she knows better, falsely believing she’s fine, and drives home. Not only does the accident leave her with lifelong debilitating pain, but it also serves as a harsh wake-up call to harsher truths...

Audio Immersion

By Sarah Boon

A few weeks ago I was sick – not with COVID, but with an illness that left me dizzy and headache-y. Lying down was preferable to sitting up, and I couldn’t read a book or look at a computer screen because it made my eyes hurt.

So I turned to podcasts about writing to entertain me when I wasn’t trying to sleep. And I realized that, during my solo forays into writing during the closed-off time of the pandemic, I’d been missing a writing community.

I listened to Sarah Broo...

Writing and Thinking “Outside of the Box:” A Class Action Lawsuit

By Boaz Dvir

A West Jefferson, Ohio, cardboard box has filed a class action lawsuit against tens of millions of Americans, citing defamation, libel, slander, reputational damage, separation anxiety, social phobia, externalist angst, agoraphobia, panic disorder, PTSD, ADHD, and FOMO.

Filed at a US District Court in Columbus, Ohio, the suit claims that the use, misuse, overuse, and bludgeoning-to-death uber-utilization of the phrase “think out of the box” has caused irreparable harm t...

You Always Remember Your First

By Andrea A. Firth

I woke at 4 a.m. to catch an unreasonably early flight. Once in the air (and after a snooze) I pulled out the book I’d set aside for the journey—A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays edited by Randon Billings Noble. I already knew Noble’s essay in the collection, “The Heart is a Torn Muscle.” I’ve taught it many times. Excited, I dug in and immersed myself in flash, segmented, fragmented, collage, mosaic, and hermit crab essays—lyric in performance on every p...

I Believed I Could Fly, and Other Deeply Held Writerly Convictions

By Mary Hannah Terzino

The summer before I turned four, I truly believed I could fly if only I tried hard enough. It was my greatest – and most secret– desire. My launching pad was the steps near my bedroom door that led downstairs. I would stand on the top step with my arms out, quivering, waiting for a sign that I could release my feet to float and fly down the stairs. I scrunched my eyes together to better concentrate, made my arms and legs rigid, lifted up on my toes, felt the longing...