“Alas, we are a nation of gorgers! Which leads me to ask, what is the void so many Americans are desperate to fill? Given our proclivity to repeatedly overfeed ourselves, and to ‘shop…

“There were three girls jumping/double dutch on the blacktop below/him, and he looked down because/even their voices sounded nimble.”—Charlotte Matthews Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—December 2017—Charlotte Matthews’ most recent…

“We had one more stop before leaving for Belgrade. I had to find some tangible connection with the Treaty of Karlowitz. I spoke briefly to the local tourist office, whose guide handed me…

“What to do? Remain calm. Nothing is under control. Not by you. Not by me. I’ve tried shouting from the rooftops. I’ve described the horrors of abrupt climate change since my earliest essays…

“Thousands . . . . There was a time when my obsessive-compulsive impulses had me determined to get one of every kind; fortunately, my obsession expired before my financial resources.”—William A. Balk, Jr.…

“It was wonderful. I know. I get it. It shouldn’t have been wonderful, but it was. Somehow, the depression that had clouded my days lifted, and my spirits were full of laughter and…

“Mansfield’s note, then, speaks of more than the universal love triangle. It also sounds out from the now-silent world of the early 20s in Europe and urban America; one in which moral, class…

“Mademoiselle—I never knew her last name—was a Romanian refugee, a member of the royal family and, we were told, a princess. There were many royals in Romania until the last king, Michael, was…

“As the temperatures climbed back into the 90s following the recent eclipse, I was struck by the fact that the entire enterprise is riding on loose rock. I walked off testing the ground…

“Write what you know, my first teachers suggested. But I have never been a big fan of reality. Reality feels like sandpaper on my skin. Sometimes I think I would love to escape…