Our guest contributors are kindred spirits who also have the writing bug. Some are dear friends and some are writers we admire from afar. Their bios are included at the end of their individual articles.
YOU WONDER WHY I TAKE BATHS ALL THE TIME Ten p.m. He would be home in about an hour. She jumped up and turned off the television. Nothing romantic about having the television on, especially at eleven o’clock. He’d come in, tired from working the night shift, pushing the door shut so he could put his coat…
The most magical moments of my childhood were spent alone. I would lay amongst the prickly spears of grass in the meadow near my home—never able to escape the heat of the midday sun—and always in an imaginative world of my own. Laying flat, pressed against the bosom of the earth, I would roll in…
Spoken word/ music track from the Poor Clare album: Like the Tide. Listen below. . I want to know the god my own unbelieving self can believe in. The one who sides with justice, because there is no other side to take. Who doesn’t fit in holy books, because she is bigger than the bigots reciting…
Seattle traffic sucks. Day and night—all the time. Anyone who lives, goes to school, or works anywhere near the city complains about it. Whether they drive, bike, walk, ride the bus or watch it from their couch on King 5 news, the traffic brings people down… or in my case, ignites every suppressed fuse of…
I have a good poker face. With three older brothers, it served me well through my childhood. I learned quickly that they wanted to get a reaction out of me. If their teasing didn’t seem to bug me, they would leave me alone. I learned to control my emotions by pushing them down, relaxing my…
A phone call for my husband. I call him, then go looking. He’s not in the den. Or the bedroom. A knock on the bathroom door gets only silence. I realize he may be ignoring me, so I call: “Gary, it’s a phone call from your work.” If he thinks it’s someone important who wants…
Karen lives in a church based intentional community – almost a dozen unrelated people who have chosen to pool their resources and share a large crumbling mansion in the suburbs. One night this happened. Shadows pool so deeply at the bottom of the stairway that it would have been easy to miss the woman standing…
Spoken word/ music track from the Poor Clare EP: In Time. Listen below. If it’s true there is hope for a tree cut down, I will walk from Alaska down to Patagonia with an axe in one hand and seeds in the other, planting treehouses along the way because even vagabonds need a place…
This past year my family of six packed up and moved 10,132 miles from our beloved hometown of Seattle to the captivating East African island of Madagascar. Despite the novelty and wonder of living in such an amazing tropical locale (which is also one of the ten poorest countries in the world), I find that occasionally…
On February 14, I will be publishing my second full-length novel at a whopping 126,000 words. Six months ago, I only had 15,000 words of it written. I had fallen into a deep, cyclical case of writer’s block. Every time I even thought about writing, I got sick to my stomach with panic. I was…
Much of my childhood was spent looking up at the sky, daydreaming, creating stories out of clouds. Books were everything. I couldn’t get enough. The Secret Garden, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit led me to secret doors to secret pathways that uncovered secret worlds. I wanted magic. Engulfed in mystery, my imagination ran riot…
All photographs by Ashley DeLatour The spiders have been inviting me to write all day: one in my hair, one on my coffee cup and one in the sink. Microscopic reminders of the story I’ve been delicately weaving in my mind. I sit for a brief moment, contemplating pen and paper. Puzzle pieces gathered at…
My voice caught firmly in my throat. When it finally made its way out, after what seemed like at least a decade, it trembled mercilessly. I sounded like a fifth grader giving her first book report. I certainly had everyone’s attention now. This was the last thing they expected to hear from me, and my…
In the past five days, I broke up with my boyfriend, asked my pastor to reconsider the church’s prohibition of women in elder and pastor roles (and in a separate conversation, asked my father to consider the same), and called a collection agency to tell them I couldn’t pay my bill. It’s been an exciting…
Today I enter my studio readying myself to engage the day. My espresso assures me that Courage will be arriving shortly. I made the appointment the night before, but she is so often late. My oils, conte, watercolors, and pencils welcome me warmly. “When do we start?” They look to me eagerly. They love most…
Kindred 