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Category: Nonfiction

  • Popcorn

    The universe has six magical aromas, just six, only six: perfume is first preferably on women, followed by fresh bread, bacon frying, birch burning, toast cooking and/or coffee brewing.

  • Third Place – “Stairs”

    We had only been dating for about six weeks. New to each other and still unfurled in each other’s spheres of friends. It was a house concert – a guitar party of sorts.

  • Second Place – “Of Guns and Guacamole”

    Forty-four years ago, almost a lifetime, it seems, I had my first taste of guacamole. I was an impressed warrior reluctantly serving my country, and had been joined by my wife as we made a new home in a small apartment nestled in the desert of El Paso.

  • First Place – “Thanurwad”

    Saoner was a small village that snuggled in an elbow of one of the tributaries of the great Narmada River. It was a small farming community of thatched huts and some small brick buildings.

  • Wheelin’ to Manhood

    There was only one rite of passage left for me on Thursday, February 18, 1959 at 8:52 am when I reached the legal age of 21. Whereas, yesterday on the 17th and up to the early morning on the 18th, I was just “Hughie Boy” or “kiddo,” or better yet, “young man.” Now I was to be known as “man,” “Mister,” “Sir.”

  • Thoughts on the Process – The Hal Grutzmacher’s Writers’ Expose

    The Hal Grutzmacher’s Writers’ Exposé and Photography Jubilee celebrates the creative process – each photograph, each poem, and each story represents time, patience, and skill from a budding or seasoned artist.

  • Defending the Fort

    On any given weekend our family would jump in the white Ford station wagon and head out to visit our farm relatives. We had three sets of them about a half hours ride west of Rockford, Illinois.

  • Black River

    As I entered the third of a four-hour meditation, my legs began to cramp and my back ached. My mind continued to run in circles, but slowly it came to a stand still when for a long calm clear moment I saw him. I saw my father sitting next to me. He wasn’t the father […]