Hot Off the Presses: Nine New Personal Essays
Welcome to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and a quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub — and now many additional publications. Beginning in January, 2022, there’ll occasionally be original work as well—the more subscription money that’s raised, the more original pieces we can publish, so if you haven’t become a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one!
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✨ For those of you attending the 2022 edition of the AWP conference in Philadlephia, mark your calendars for the AWP edition of Memoir Monday, to be held on Wednesday, March 23rd! Check back here for more information as it develops… ✨
'Ammonite' Isn't a Lesbian Romance, But It Is About Intimacy
by Natasha Oladokun
"It’s taken me the better part of a year to write about this movie. I’d like to say I don’t know why it’s taken so long, but of course I do. Ingrained neural pathways are powerful. It frightens me still—writing frankly about the simultaneous intimacy and publicness of my queerness frightens me, just as much as my phobia of drowning in the ocean or floating off into deep space and suffocating alone."
The Statue
by Alina Stefanescu
“‘Revolution does not change the judge’s costume,’ Dad says. ‘Revolution only changes the words he uses to dress justice.’ Nonetheless, he calls the judge a hero for setting Ion’s confession aside and granting a retrial.”
The Plague
by Emily Urquhart
"You could call my research mythological doom scrolling: the grimmer the legend, the more sated I am. I go to bed only once I’ve read the worst, most appalling pestilence tale I can find. The news cycle does not offer what I need to hear about humanity, but legends are travelers, shapeshifters, easily following the path of disease and transforming to capture our fears and societal problems. They are the real story."
Traveling Secretary
by Emmanuel Iduma
"What notion of belonging might have been possible for my family if he had chosen life as an academic? The preceding condition for any life is found in one that predates it: my life unfolded within the net effect of my father’s choices. From his impermanence I grew into mine, remaining in New York after graduate school on the assumption that I could put off the decision of whether to return or settle. Until the day on the train when I began to sink on shifting ground."
Charlie and Me
by Robin Eileen Bernstein
"In 1974, the year I wrote that letter to Charlie [Watts], my conservative, Nixon-supporting dad insisted over and over, ‘Girls don’t play drums!’ I naively assumed he was right. My mom tried to teach me what she considered the more feminine art of knitting. I can still hear her counting ‘knit one, purl two.’ But I was a wannabe timekeeper and that wasn’t my kind of counting."
Daddy Was a Number Runner
by Deesha Philyaw
"The violence Francie experiences isn’t the only reason adult-me wants to reach into the pages and hug her. Like Francie, I was once a child embarrassed by her family’s poverty. Year after year, I refused to bring home the paperwork that would allow me to get free lunch at school, something that would’ve made things easier for my mother. Somehow, though, within the first few weeks of school, I always ended up with a free lunch ticket that burned with shame in my hand. Now, as a mother who has had to buy bread with nickels within the last five years, I wish I could tell Francie that the shame of not having enough in one of the wealthiest nations in the world does not belong to her.”
A Walk Down the Aisle Tainted by Illness
by Megan Margulies
"When I’m sick, the world becomes small. I enter a form of meditation, overly aware of the tiniest details — the hair on my arms, my peeling cuticles, the steam rising from the bathtub. On my wedding day, in September 2013, it was no different. I saw the soft curve of the pink flower petals in my bouquet, felt the blades of grass tickling my sandaled toes as I walked toward my husband.”
How Making Yogurt Keeps My Hope Alive
by Daniela Elza
"Sometimes I call my parents in Bulgaria while warming the milk. I swear those times the yogurt is tastier. My parents say things like: Those who sing do not think bad thoughts, or You cannot turn the sea to yogurt, but what if it is curdles? A Bulgarian saying which I discovered seems to link yogurt directly to hope. They also say: Do something nice and throw it on the trash heap. I was always puzzled about that one when I was a kid, but now I imagine a city dump with piles of lovely things we did for each other."
Foster Care: The Story My Body Already Knew
By Aimee Christian
“When I asked my mother why my birth certificate looked different than everyone else’s, she didn’t tell me there was another, original one, sealed up somewhere. Maybe she didn’t know. Later I learned that back in the 1930s, former New York Governor Herbert Lehman sealed these original records because he had adopted a child and he hadn’t wanted his child to discover the truth. So for the next nearly ninety years, the 650,000 adoptees in New York State, including me, were denied the right to our truths as well.”
📢 Attention Publications and writers interested in having published essays considered for inclusion in our weekly curation:
By Thursday of each week, please send to memoirmonday@gmail.com:
The title of the essay and a link to it.
The name of the author.
A paragraph or a few lines from the piece that will most entice readers.
The artwork and the appropriate credits.
*Please be advised, however, that we cannot accept all submissions.
You can also support Memoir Monday—and indie bookstores!—by browsing this Bookshop.org list of every book that’s been featured at the Memoir Monday reading series. It’s a great place to find some new titles to add to your TBR list!
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