carousel

  “Wait, what are you talking about?” This is my 13-year-old son, Ben. “I thought you were talking about a long time ago.” I picture what he’s picturing: grainy black-and-white Brown v. Board of Education photographs of black school kids escorted through frowning alleys of white faces. “No,” I say. “That’s what’s so crazy. This is what’s happening now. Literally today.” I am explaining to him about the first integrated prom in Wilcox County, Georgia. “But that’s illegal, right?” he wonders sensibly enough, and I have to describe the parents’ work-around of making the prom, technically, a private party. “That is really not the spirit of the law,” Ben says, and gets a kiss on the head he is shaking in disbelief. The next day, along with his 10-year-old sister Birdy, we “like” the prom on Facebook and are treated to dozens of photographs of beautiful, beaming, radiant kids, everybody so sleek and newly hatched that you can hardly believe

By Jocelyn Wiener The gender stuff I breezed through with my daughter feels surprisingly fraught with my son. “I want the yellow dress,” begs the weeping, shrieking pile of two-year-old boy that lies crumpled at my bare feet. Still in my pajamas, I dig through my son’s overstuffed dresser, scrambling to locate the pale cotton frock he has appropriated from his 4-year-old sister. “How about a striped one, instead?” I offer. “NO!” “Your special firetruck PJs?” “NOOOOOO!!!!” For my son, his desire for the dress is profoundly logical: He needs it to twirl. Specifically, he needs it to twirl at preschool. Now, against the backdrop of screaming toddler, my progressively minded, almost-40-year-old adult self does battle with the awkwardly dressed, frequently teased fourth grader she carries within. The idealist in me wants to encourage my son’s self-expression, to embrace gender fluidity, to send him out into the world wearing (almost) anything he damn well pleases. We live in Oakland, a

By Carla Sameth “So my son’s an addict. I guess at this point you might wonder what the hell his mom did to make him that way. Actually, I had to put him in a twelve-step program at three years old. NA—Nursing Anonymous.” My first standup set ever; I had performed at the Comedy Store in Hollywood. Lots of laughs.  Asked back by the host to perform another set. My son, Raphael was 18 years old, six months in recovery. I woke up the next day feeling like shit. I’d “outed” Raphael, as an addict. What kind of mom was I? Now in recovery for more than six months, he’d given me permission to write about him but just as with almost everything in my life, I felt so guilty I was nauseous all morning. My therapist had suggested I try comedy. “You’re funny. Go out and do something new like stand-up or improv,” she’d said from the safety of

By Estelle Erasmus “I luff you, because you’re sveet like a piece of chocolate,” my Grandma Genia crooned in her thick, Yiddish accent, handing me a hunk of a Hershey bar. No exotic fare like Godiva for Grandma—she eschewed exports, even though she herself was one. Grandma had suffered bitterness in her life. When the Nazis first invaded Poland, my grandfather wanted to stay and fight. She convinced him to take their family—including baby, Miriam, my mother and flee. Escaping into the forest, they made their way to Russia. Their siblings and cousins couldn’t get out, and perished in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. After the war, they lived in Israel and emigrated to the United States when my mother was fifteen years old. She married my father, after meeting at a college dance. Grandma was dramatic. She wore her blonde hair in a bouffant and, despite her meager income as a dressmaker, and my grandfather’s as a tailor, donned a

By Anne Ney The Gullah say driftwoods have eyes. I hear this on the TV from the kitchen sink where I am rinsing vomit from the emesis basin. David hears it from the couch where he shivers, nauseous and pale beneath an afghan, recovering from his latest round of chemo. We are alone, as we often are, mother and child in this island of a house at the end of the dirt road. The television offers us another view of the world; today, Gullah-Gullah Island tells us driftwoods have eyes. The show’s co-hosts, Ron and Natalie, banter in a Low Country cadence characteristic of their African-American community, rooted on the islands between Savannah and Charleston. These sea islands, like those where the Gullah originate, were settled by Ron and Natalie’s ancestors, enslaved West Africans brought to the Carolinas to coax indigo, cotton, and rice from the sea island marsh. As they chat I try to imagine the anguish those Africans

By Rebecca Timlin-Scalera I shimmied over, ever so slightly and subtly, to Bella’s side of the bed. She was busy on her phone; with the six-hour time difference, it was “prime social media time” for her friends back in the States. I studied her in her mismatched t-shirt and shorts. She is 12 now. Gone are the days of her wearing matching pajamas, handpicked by me. I marveled now at her long, dark, wavy hair, and her delicate features – on the precipice of emerging into the grown-up version of herself, but from this angle – still bearing more resemblance to those I first laid eyes on. We needed this trip. Seven months prior, I had gotten the call that changed our lives ? again. After just two years, my breast cancer had metastasized. I was now considered terminally ill with no real treatment options; just clinical trials to extend my life. Navigating these terrifying waters, on top of the

By Guita Sazan It is not winter. Yet, the cruel icy winds are blowing in the burn unit of the army (artesh) hospital where I volunteer as a nurse’s aide. Mr. Azaree was not in his room when I arrived in the morning. The odors of his infected, scorched body, hydrogen peroxide, and antiseptics still saturated the room. Azaree, a sweet and whimsical 21-year old soldier was the victim of mustard gas. He had sustained third degree burns over 70% of his body. Blisters covered his inner lungs too. The scabs on his legs had to be shaved, scrubbed, and washed everyday. He cried, screeched, and begged to be left alone. The cleaning kept the deadly infections at bay. But his condition had deteriorated over the past few days. I run to the head nurse, “Was Azaree moved to the Intensive Care Unit?” The red pen continued gliding on her clipboard. She didn’t look up. “He died last night and

After six years of editing and publishing Brain, Child and Brain, Teen I am pleased to announce that both magazines are now under the Creative Nonfiction umbrella.

This is an exciting opportunity for the Brain, Child brands to continue to make an impact within an esteemed literary organization.

Omri Massarwe and Omri Hochfeld (last two boys on right) This is the first in our series of Teen Voices, where we interview teens about topics they care about.   By Ruth Ebenstein Stroll into the offices of Kids4Peace in the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood of East Jerusalem during a youth meeting and call out the name “Omri! and two heads will turn. “Yes?” Both brown-haired teens, one 6 feet tall and thin with straight hair, the other with a broader build and a head spiked in thick kinky curls, will break into laughter. “Which one do you want? Hochfeld-or Massarwe?” You’re likely to find “Hochfeld”, a 16-year-old Jewish Israeli, and “Massarwe”, a 16-year-old Muslim Palestinian, cracking jokes or comparing the players of Hochfeld’s favorite soccer team, Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem, with those of Futbol Club Barcelona, Massarwe’s favorite. “Omri”, which means life in Arabic, is the first name shared by two peace activists who have become fast friends over the last

Letters to Our Younger Selves is a column where readers write letters to their younger selves with insight and perspective. By Lisa Catapano Dear Baby Girl, This is a year of unraveling. Know that there is purpose in your pain. The world desperately needs the wisdom, compassion and kindness borne of your suffering. I promise. Perfection is a myth. Let it go. There is no right or wrong; no good or bad; no mistake or failure. Perfect is to control as surrender is to flow. Live fully into each experience. Fall and get up many times over. You will discover yourself in your most vulnerable spaces. Eat more vegetables. Eat more crow. Apologize for the lies you’ve told (“I’m not a virgin”/”I am a virgin”) and for the truths you hide (“I’m a ball of shame”), especially those you hide from yourself (“I’m in over my head”). Humility is strength. Forgiveness is the light. One day as you walk between

Holly Rizzuto Palker Interviews Jessica Strawser on her debut novel, Almost Missed  You. ALMOST MISSED YOU by Jessica Strawser, is an intriguing novel involving a husband and two-year-old son disappearing while on a family vacation. I’m not sure how Jessica created this deliciously suspenseful book with so much else on her plate (she is the Editorial Director of Writer’s Digest magazine, and she and her very supportive husband are the parents of two children under age five). As a mother to three young children myself,  I couldn’t help but catch up with Jessica to ask her some questions about her novel, her family, and her writing journey. 1. One of the most horrific experiences I can imagine would be for one of my children to go missing. What specific parenting moment sparked the idea for your premise? Fortunately, there was no parenting moment that sparked the idea for my premise, but rather it grew out of a fascination with the