Memoirist Jeannie Vanasco’s third book, A Silent Treatment, will be released by Tin House on September 9. Jeannie’s mother starts using the silent treatment shortly after she moves into a renovated apartment in Jeannie’s home. Over the five years…
The editors at CRAFT are thrilled to welcome Donald Quist as our guest judge for this year’s Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest, which is open to memoir excerpts, personal essays, narrative nonfiction, lyric essays, and other forms of literary…
Content Warnings—alcohol overdose, death Welcome to the Grocery Supreme Aptitude Test™. This test is divided into the following five sections: Commuting and Tardiness, Opening Duties, Product Management, Customer Service, and Long Answer Questions. A few important notes: You…
1. The first ghost I ever learn about is God, circa 1998, in a kindergarten classroom in Queens, New York. My parents have sent me to Catholic school not out of religious devotion, or some need for strictness, but…
In every story we are precocious, fast, little mothers, little women living in questionable child bodies. Men stalk the straps of our training bras sliding off our shoulders. Our mothers scold us for getting ruined or dirty—always reminding us of…
Ugly, ain’t it? The whole fuck of it. The way the doctor’s fingers patted the rim of skin on Mummy’s concave chest. The twin rims where she, Doctor Small Tits, had cut off Mummy’s two breasts, golden brown to…
Pik-Shuen Fung’s Ghost Forest was first a visual artwork that evolved into a manuscript, which then became her debut novel. The story is a lyrical and tender one written in vignettes about a daughter grieving her father. The unnamed…
Fan Jou Suri Served at the end of a meal, fan jou suri isn’t a dessert. Or, technically, a soup. But for my brother and me, youngsters living in Boston in the early 1960s, parents pinching every penny, fan…
Ages 17–19 Aging English Rockstar Who Threatened to SueHe tells you about his daughter between mouthfuls of dragon rolls, dabbing the truffle off his upper lip scruff with the corner of a napkin. He lost her to cancer before…
Last Cut All firsts. You let me drive. You let me choose the radio station. You rested your huge head against the headrest, closed your eyes. Never a willing passenger. Seventy-five quiet kilometres to the London Regional Palliative…
After a long well-fought battle with cancer, my brother left this world far too young. He left three children and a load of powerful memories that I have no idea where to put. He was two years my senior and extremely competitive. Sports and fighting were our only method of communication. Win or lose was our emotional intelligence inheritance. We shared a great love for each other but few words, so I search for them continually in his memory.
As for form, I just try to keep it as short as possible and factual, which isn’t as easy, as my imagination is as strong as he was—infinitely horsepowered. I send these caught moments into the world with hope that they will help others house their own memories.
I miss playing our games, Jon. Miss you, brother.
DM O’CONNOR has an MFA from University College Dublin and the University of New Mexico. He is a contributing reviewer for Rhino Poetry and fiction editor at Bending Genres. His work has appeared in Splonk, A New Ulster, Fractured Lit, Cormorant, Crannog, Opossum, The New Quarterly, The Irish Times, The Guardian, and others. He is the recipient of the 2021 Cúirt New Writing Prize, Tom-Gallon Trust Award, and is the current writer-in-residence at the Kerouac House.
