Writing and photography from the Great Lakes region
The village of Green River is inhabited by two groups, insiders and outsiders. The insiders move. No matter which direction they travel, it is always away from reflection, away from thought. As a result, they live sane lives. They are …
My Uncle Mark was the black sheep on my Mom’s side. He moved to Windsor during Vietnam, saying, “Good luck with that bullshit war – I wanna live.” When he got back he hustled the pool sharks at some east …
I come from flyover country. That’s what people here call it. My grandparents slaughtered pigs. Strung porkers and sucklings up by the feet to bleed out, collected the blood in mason jars that I carried from slaughter shed to my …
Some days are better than others, some days are worse than others, some days just are. This was going to be one of those better days, I hoped. Did I resent my mother’s remarrying? It was Dr. Runner who …
April 2, 2003 Ms. Wendy Ainsley Greenmoor Country Club Winnetka, Ill. Dear Ms. Ainsley, I wanted to phone you after receiving your voice message last Thursday but thought it would be better if I wrote as I can put my …
It was still an hour until tip-off and Dad was already ashing his cigarette into his coffee. This was the moment he’d waited his entire life for, he said. The moment that his father had waited his entire life for—may …
Before Buckeye Lake dam failed, Noah’s Ark was a Little Golden Book on Jon Fortner’s daughter’s bookshelf. Before Buckeye Lake dam failed, it had gone by other names. In 1750, the area that would become Buckeye Lake was described as a …
