![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/sez-i-to-myself-199x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOn my second day as a rookie English teacher at my alma mater, Stuyvesant High School, I walked down the fourth floor hallway on my way to class.<\/p>\n
Behind a thick column, lurking in the shadows, a kind looking man with an Irish brogue quietly summoned me. \u201cPsst…hey, come over here.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I strolled over, he blurted out: \u201cGet out while you can!\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw my quizzical expression, not quite comprehending his warning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s five shows a day, in front of the toughest audience you\u2019ll ever face,\u201d he said with a twinkle in his eye.<\/p>\n
The man was Frank McCourt, Stuyvesant\u2019s venerated creative writing teacher. I was immediately smitten.<\/p>\n
Thus began the most rewarding mentorship and friendship that I\u2019ve ever had. Two years later, I heeded his advice and \u201cgot out\u201d to pursue my dream of a journalism career. Even after I left teaching, we stayed close, and our lives continued to intersect.<\/p>\n
A few days after his first essay appeared in print, an excited Frank called me from a phone booth on East Ninth Street, near the pub. His voice sounded electric.<\/p>\n
Frank clearly was a highly adored teacher but that wasn\u2019t his ultimate dream\u2014he really wanted to make it as a writer. But no path had yet opened for him, and he was in his late fifties. I recall one day the famous Jerzy Kosinski, author of Being There <\/i>and The Painted Bird<\/i>, came to speak at Stuyvesant, and after his remarks, Frank went up to him and plaintively asked: \u201cHow can I be a writer like you?\u201d<\/p>\n
He told me a few times when we were teaching together that on nights and weekends he was trying to write a book about his impoverished childhood, but he \u201ccouldn\u2019t get the sounds of the classroom\u201d out of his ears.<\/p>\n
I left Stuyvesant because I was offered a job as Editor of a new weekly newspaper covering the West Side of Manhattan. It was a great first journalism job, and I was only 24. Frank told me he was proud that I was chasing my dream.<\/p>\n
About a year after I left teaching, Frank and I had one of our occasional dinners at the Lion\u2019s Head restaurant on Christopher Street in Manhattan. It was a well-known journalist and author hang out. That night, we eyed revered columnist Pete Hamill across the bar. Frank told me he was jealous of Hamill and Jimmy Breslin, two of the more literary columnists who became famous in New York in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Frank took his eyes off Hamill and turned to me, a pint in his hands, and said: \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve always wanted to be a columnist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInteresting. What would you want to write about?\u201d I asked, playing along.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, one week I\u2019d go to a pub, and I\u2019d observe whether the bartender mixed good drinks and if there was a lively conversation at the bar. The next week, I\u2019d go to a church or synagogue, and I\u2019d review the rabbi or preacher\u2019s sermon. And the next week, I\u2019d go to a school and sit in on a few classes and write about whether the teachers in that school were really engaging the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded my head and said: \u201cHmm\u2026 that could be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the three most important institutions in society\u2014pubs, houses of worship and schools\u2014and nobody writes about them unless there\u2019s a scandal,\u201d Frank elaborated.<\/p>\n
Two weeks later, a new monthly column by Frank McCourt, called \u201cForays,\u201d appeared in The West Side Spirit<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The debut piece was a witty, literary look at the history and enduring appeal of McSorley\u2019s, a pub on East Seventh Street in Manhattan. The city\u2019s oldest drinking establishment, it opened its doors in 1854, and it continues to serve up ales and stouts even today, 172 years later. It was Frank\u2019s favorite watering hole.<\/p>\n
But halfway through our journey, we hit an unexpected roadblock: You can\u2019t name a school after a living person.<\/p>\n
A few days after his first essay appeared in print, an excited Frank called me from a phone booth on East Ninth Street, near the pub. His voice sounded electric.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom, you won\u2019t believe what I just saw. Hanging above the men\u2019s urinal is a framed copy of my McSorley\u2019s column. Do you know how many people will see that?!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Years later, after Angela\u2019s Ashes<\/i> became a worldwide phenomenon and sold more than 10 million copies, I\u2019d introduce Frank at an annual event he emceed for my media company, called \u201cThe Blackboard Awards.\u201d We honored 25 Teachers of the Year in New York City, and the assembled crowd was always enthralled by Frank\u2019s entertaining storytelling and commentary.<\/p>\n
In my introduction of him those evenings, I\u2019d tell the McSorley\u2019s bathroom urinal story. \u201cUntil he wrote Angela\u2019s Ashes<\/i>, that was Frank\u2019s best-read piece of writing,\u201d I\u2019d deadpan, as the whole audience broke into laughter.<\/p>\n
I was so proud that Frank and I ultimately chased our individual dreams. For him it meant overnight worldwide fame, albeit after years of trying to write. He was always a bit shocked by all the attention. He once said of the hoopla: \u201cTom, I\u2019m the mick of the moment.\u201d And he\u2019d flash his impish grin.<\/p>\n
I knew while I was editing his essays that he was a singular talent\u2014literary, profane, wise, cutting, and unique all at once. His prose would crackle off the page as if to say: \u201cLISTEN! This is important!\u201d<\/p>\n
I was excited to showcase his talents and allow him to see that he belonged in New York\u2019s journalism ecosystem. He was painstaking in writing those pieces and it showed in his final drafts. They required very little editing. Why mess with a future Pulitzer Prize winner?<\/p>\n
Watching Frank teach, as I did as often as I could, was like watching a master on stage. He knew how to lob provocative questions at his students, elicit more detail from monosyllabic answers all while making learning joyful. His assignments were genius: \u201cGo home and write a restaurant review of your mother (or father\u2019s) home cooked dinner tonight. Lots of detail. I want to SMELL the pasta when I\u2019m done reading it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or: \u201cGo home and write the most creative excuse note you can for why you didn\u2019t do last night\u2019s homework. Most creative one doesn\u2019t have to do homework for two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Frank passed away in 2008, The New York Times<\/i> posted his lengthy obituary online. I noticed a few thousand comments posted in the first week, most of them former students singing his praises and reminiscing about how his class turned them on to writing.<\/p>\n
He had students, like Susan Gilman, who went on to become successful memoirists and novelists. Gilman once told me that Frank saved her life: as a brooding 16-year-old she found purpose in his creative writing class. His attention gave her the hunger to become a great writer to make him proud\u2014and he was.<\/p>\n
After Frank\u2019s searing memoir captured the minds of millions around the planet and he won numerous awards, I would gleefully watch his well-earned fame. And between book tours and lectures and television interviews, we would periodically catch up. One day he called for advice: \u201cWe\u2019re buying this co-op on West 77th Street. What is this thing, a co-op board interview?\u201d<\/p>\n
This was Frank\u2019s first foray into New York\u2019s cutthroat real estate market. \u201cJust be yourself at the interview and they\u2019ll fall for you like I did more than a decade ago,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
In 2008, as a publisher and education activist, I was given the opportunity to help create a new public high school on West 83rd Street with local Council member Gale Brewer, a West Side legend.<\/p>\n
At the teacher awards ceremony that Frank emceed for my company, he\u2019d always lament that schools are never named after teachers\u2014just politicians or astronauts or other undeserving people.<\/p>\n
Remembering Frank\u2019s words, I suggested to Brewer that we name the new school after Frank McCourt, an immigrant success story that would inspire kids of all backgrounds. Coming to New York penniless, he worked odd jobs to survive before embarking on a high school teaching career of two decades before he wrote one of the most beloved books of the late 20th century, Angela\u2019s Ashes<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Gale liked my idea, and we embarked on getting community buy-in to create a school focused on creative writing. But halfway through our journey, we hit an unexpected roadblock: You can\u2019t name a school after a living person.<\/p>\n
I had to call Frank about the problem. \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Frank, we will figure out a way around this,\u201d I said, trying to convince myself and him that all would be ok.<\/p>\n
I realized that Frank and I had a great friendship\u2014seeing each other through good times and bad, coaching each other on professional aspirations and ultimately becoming inextricably linked by our shared pasts.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll never forget his response, which even as I type this, sends a chill down my spine. \u201cWell, I guess I better hurry up then.\u201d<\/p>\n
A week later, I found out that Frank had passed out on a cruise and that led to a revelation that he was very ill. I couldn\u2019t believe it. It made my passion for creating this school accelerate.<\/p>\n
Frank passed away in July 2009. That summer I worked day and night campaigning for Frank McCourt High School. At his memorial service in early September, I got on stage with Frank\u2019s wife, Ellen, and NY City\u2019s Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, and we announced that Frank McCourt high school would open that Fall. I stood on stage with a bittersweet feeling: I already missed Frank, but I was glad I was able to help make his dream come true. In his final weeks, I gave him updates on the school\u2019s progress, and he seemed very pleased.<\/p>\n
I realized that Frank and I had a great friendship\u2014seeing each other through good times and bad, coaching each other on professional aspirations and ultimately becoming inextricably linked by our shared pasts.<\/p>\n
__________________________________<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank & Malachy McCourt<\/a>\u00a0edited by Tom and Jonah Allon is available from Abrams.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On my second day as a rookie English teacher at my alma mater, Stuyvesant High School, I walked down the fourth floor hallway on my way to class. Behind a thick column, lurking in the shadows, a kind looking man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31892,"featured_media":276666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43102,43071,43069,6,43103,43092],"tags":[27256,25266,25267,9975,112109,183,112108,112110],"class_list":["post-276399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biography","category-craft-and-advice","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-memoir","category-newsandculture","tag-abrams","tag-angelas-ashes","tag-frank-mccourt","tag-friendship","tag-malachy-mccourt","tag-memoir","tag-sez-i-to-myself","tag-tom-allon"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19U3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frank-mccourt.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276648,"date":"2026-09-09T05:07:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T09:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276648"},"modified":"2026-09-08T10:58:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:58:49","slug":"read-the-winners-of-american-short-fictions-2026-insider-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/read-the-winners-of-american-short-fictions-2026-insider-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Read the Winners of American Short Fiction\u2019<\/em>s 2026 Insider Prize"},"content":{"rendered":" Writing is a challenge, at every level. There are constant pressures acting upon a writer: juggling between responsibilities and work; prioritizing health; making and somehow slowing down time; even, perhaps, the arresting, infinite possibilities of the page. Not to mention, all the subconscious terrain, where one wrestles with memory, vulnerability, and presence.<\/p>\n And yet\u2014<\/p>\n These five pieces, selected as the winners by novelist and short story writer Elizabeth McCracken for the 2026 Insider Prize, are awe-inspiring depictions of fortitude, honesty, and the power of narrative\u2014all written under the difficult circumstances found within the carceral system.<\/p>\n Take, for example, Charles Hill\u2019s winning story, \u201cPrisoner\u2019s Home\u201d: where a protagonist returns after serving a lengthy sentence and struggles to adjust to societal conditions. Hill expresses, in earnest, the fears of being seen in public spaces, such as a grocery store, hounded by personal questions\u2014an all-too relatable scenario, regardless of one\u2019s background. (In an interesting turn of events, Charles Hill was discharged sometime after submitting for the prize; his whereabouts are currently unknown. Here\u2019s hoping his personal odyssey leads him to safe harbors.) And Brian Steven\u2019s runner-up story, \u201cA Hairy Tale,\u201d follows a character desperately seeking to rid his cell from his celly\u2019s hair with vivid use of detail and a suspenseful ending.<\/p>\n Deanna Carney\u2019s winning essay, \u201cSit. Stay.,\u201d recounts heartbreaking events from childhood to parenthood, marked by the various pets that provided comfort in those moments. With prose akin to poetry, she delves into the layers of trauma and finds a way out through healing and support. (A notable event, too: Deanna will be released on parole in late September 2026.) And in a first for the Insider Prize, there are two runners-up in nonfiction, with thought-provoking insights of the system and a portrayal of yearning to reunite with family; Matthew Mendoza\u2019s \u201cZen and the Art of Civil Commitment\u201d reaches emotional depths through powerful reflections in search of redemption, while Steven Perez\u2019s \u201cAunt Terry and Josiah King\u201d transports the reader inside his bunker where he makes a call to his dying aunt.<\/p>\n Each submission received for the prize\u2014handwritten or typed out, then mailed in thick, delicate envelopes\u2014examined the human condition through a diverse lens: the lack of justice, oppressive Texas heat in harsh living conditions, violence suffered by transgender women, and the struggle with addiction. Most moving, above all, are the correspondences with the writers themselves who reach out at their own expense\u2014quite literally. A message to touch base and say hello, an eager inquiry on the next open window for the contest, a half-torn, crumbled page from someone asking for writing resources in penciled scribbles. I can only imagine, through slivers of their reality depicted in their pieces, the limited spaces and time allotted; it serves us well to keep in mind the effort and length incarcerated writers undertake for the chance of expression and connection.<\/p>\n With much gratitude from our Insider Prize Assistant Editors, our partners at Lit Hub and Huston-Tillotson University, and everyone at American Short Fiction<\/em>, I hope these remarkable stories serve as beacons for hope, forgiveness, and redemption. A pause to reflect and a reminder of our privileges, the responsibility to uplift marginalized voices, and the opportunity to meet ourselves on the page\u2014and each other\u2014with the same strength, humility, and grace.<\/p>\n \u2013Sergio Muro, Insider Prize Director<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPrisoner\u2019s Home,\u201d by Charles Hill, follows a young man in the months after his release from prison, as he discovers that the features of his incarceration\u2014the fights he\u2019s been in, the lies he\u2019s told, the way he\u2019s tried to make himself invulnerable\u2014all follow him home. His given name is Chris, but in prison he calls himself \u201cCrazy.\u201d This complicated and heartfelt story is about how the lies you tell yourself about who you are will change you, but never in the way you hope: what you hope will save you might doom you instead.<\/p>\n \u2013Elizabeth McCracken<\/em><\/p>\n Chris went to prison at the young age of nineteen\u2014he was in his second year of college. Photos of Chris on social media show him hunting, drinking, and dancing: all the things his parents never had the opportunity to do.<\/p>\n Prison turned Chris into a liar. After prison, even he couldn\u2019t accept the truth: he had learned to hate freedom and lied about loving home.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n His American Dream was going well, until one night at a party.<\/p>\n \u201cHey girl, what\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n Chris stood up and placed a hand between his girl and the kid who approached her. \u201cBuzz off, buddy. She\u2019s not interested,\u201d Chris said.<\/p>\n The kid stepped back, raising both hands in defense. \u201cWoooow bro, I\u2019m just here to party.\u201d He gave a shitty grin, then glanced at his buddies behind him.<\/p>\n Chris lowered his hand.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, girl: are you going to stay with the lame Captain Save-a-Ho or come with big daddy?\u201d<\/p>\n Chris dashed the kid with his drink and swung furiously; he caught him in the jaw with a second swing, the kid dropping like a wet noodle. Two bodyguards turned and walked off. But Chris wasn\u2019t done: he dropped to one knee and pounded the kid\u2019s face. Blow after blow, Chris saw red. He didn\u2019t feel the soft hand or long blond hair rest on the back of his neck or hear the sweet voice crying, \u201cStop, Chris. Please. Stop.\u201d<\/p>\n Smash, smash, smash.<\/em><\/p>\n Someone hit Chris over the head, and the next thing he could remember was a bright white LED shining into his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cYep, he\u2019s up now. Drag him to the car,\u201d a cop said.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The county jail was a new experience for Chris to say the least, a new one that would last for years. He was charged with aggravated assault; that didn\u2019t stop him from telling everyone he was in for murder. The first thing Chris did was invent a tough sobriquet. Crazy was what he went by now.<\/p>\n Three months later, the DA offered him fifteen years. Everyone on the pod said fifteen was good for murder, so he signed for it.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The photos of Crazy that his mom collected were only from visitation. In the first few, Crazy was heavy with weight (which he said gave him more power in his punch) and discolored eyes (which he said was from all the fights he won). This one was a broken nose. This one he had his arm in a cast. The rest are full of deep, deep depression (which he said was from homesick fever).<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are all the backgrounds so different?\u201d Susan, Chris\u2019s sister, asked.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, he has been in so many units: Garza West, Garza East, Beto, Connley, Alred, Coffield, Michaels,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat for?\u201d Susan asked.<\/p>\n \u201cHeaven knows, Chris\u2019s always said he got into fights but couldn\u2019t talk about them.\u201d<\/p>\n Crazy never told the same story twice. He was all you could be at any given day and had the tattoos to prove it: Crazy\u2019s arms and back were covered with hook tattoos that had thick black lines, pepper shading, and tons of skulls\u2014he even had the state of Texas on his neck.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The last two weeks before Crazy was released on parole, he gathered all the personal information of fellow inmates he could. With a smile and a hug, he told them he would keep in touch. Crazy even told all his close friends he was going to send them money to buy snacks. But the last two days, his pretentious promises ate at his insides; he hovered over the toilet all night puking the pork noodle casserole. He puked so much, it seemed like he had puked all the casserole trays he had ever eaten in the past decade\u2014which is a lot of pork noodle. The truth was he wasn\u2019t ready to leave. He had never prepared to leave. But Crazy was never going to tell that.<\/p>\n Crazy wore \u201870s throwback Salvation Army clothes and stood at the last gate between him and freedom, the closest he had been in ten years. The air was fresher, the sky was baby blue and deep with no clouds. The trees played music with the wind as it sifted through their branches.<\/p>\n He exhaled. \u201cOkay, okay, okay,\u201d he whispered, squeezing his hand and looking down at the scars over his knuckle.<\/p>\n \u201cGate!\u201d an officer behind him yelled.<\/p>\n Crazy\u2019s body shrunk hearing the voice. Did I do something wrong? Are they going to let me go?<\/em><\/p>\n Click<\/em>. The door popped open, and the gate swung out with a creak.<\/p>\n \u201cGo on boy. Ain\u2019t gonna shoot you. You\u2019re free,\u201d the office said, giving him a shove.<\/p>\n Crazy\u2019s right leg stepped on the uneven concrete; for a moment, he felt like Armstrong. One small step for man<\/em>. His mind reeled like a movie: steps, hugs and kisses from Mom and sis. Breathe. Sit in the car. Breathe. Soft seat, gone. Breathe, gone. Out of sight. Breathe.<\/em><\/p>\n The piny woods swallowed the red bricks surrounded by spirals of razor wire and fence. He felt like his heart was plucked from his chest.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n \u201cOh, Chris, wait until we get you something to eat,\u201d Mom squawked. His dad said nothing. Susan said nothing. Crazy said nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cChris, quit looking back,\u201d Mom said with a sap smile.<\/p>\n \u201cHuh? Oh, okay.\u201d Breathe<\/em>, Crazy thought.<\/p>\n The first five years in prison, all Crazy wanted was a homecoming party, but the last five years, he didn\u2019t want anything.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, here we are. We\u2019re home! Come on, Chris. No one\u2019s here. Just you, Susan, me, and Dad,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n Crazy sat on the swing under the oak tree: no party, no friends, just family. The only people who reached out to him the entire ten years. Nothing was the same. The house was painted brown. All the bikes were rusted, and everyone\u2019s vehicles were new. But it was just like he liked it, he told himself. He sat on the swing until the sun went down, alone, just like he wanted.<\/p>\n Dinner decked the table: golden buttery mashed potatoes, roast beef with draining juices seeping out the sides, greens with chunks of soggy bacon gasping for air.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like you always liked it, after a big Friday night game,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like I liked it. Thanks, Mom.\u201d Crazy slapped a heap of potatoes on his plate.<\/p>\n Dad forked a bite of roast beef, eyed it, then shoved it in his mouth.<\/p>\n His sister stared at Crazy with amazement. \u201cChris, now that there\u2019s no one listening to the phone calls, tell us some real stories.\u201d Susan\u2019s eyes beamed.<\/p>\n The potatoes on Crazy\u2019s spoon, once golden butter, turned to prison-styled potatoes: rotten with black spots and brown potato skins. He dropped the spoon, stopped chewing.<\/p>\n The clock on the wall clicked its small, plastic hands. A small, black radio in the living room, just over a whisper, played a George Strait song.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real story . . . you see, well I . . .\u201d Crazy stopped to wipe the water in his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cOh Chris, it\u2019s okay. Tell us another time, honey,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. Susan, you can\u2019t ask big questions like that. That answer\u2019s going to take weeks to tell,\u201d Crazy said.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, do you have a good fight story?\u201d Susan probed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich one?\u201d Crazy wiped his forehead, then trailed his finger over the scar above his eyebrow.<\/p>\n \u201cYou got more than one?\u201d She leaned over her plate.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat, do you think it\u2019s a walk down a church pew? Everyone\u2019s a criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n Dinner floated by with vapid comments around the meal and eventually died out.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n After dinner, Crazy laid down in his own bed and was transported to another time: one he no longer recognized\u2014the time every minute was precious. The bed felt soft, softer than it had ever felt. Time ticked up to twelve, then started down. In the dark, Crazy couldn\u2019t tell if his eyes were open or closed. His mind ran the perimeter of the room, visualizing the window, door, walls, and photos. Silence rang in his ears, listening to himself breathe. Blood streamed through his veins, pulsing inside him, like a ticking time bomb. The bed turned stiff and hard; he felt uncomfortable, alienated.<\/p>\n A dream haunted him: Somebody, somewhere, chasing him. Room after room, he slammed the doors behind him for safety, but the doors were never the right size to fit the frame; they were smaller, half the size. Run, run, run.<\/em> Twisting in blank abandoned rooms like a maze with no end, but no time to stop. No time to rest.<\/p>\n \u201cChris!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHuh? Yeah?\u201d Crazy said.<\/p>\n \u201cGet up. Coffee\u2019s ready,\u201d Dad said.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d Crazy ran his hands over his face, trying to relax. \u201cI\u2019ll be out in a minute.\u201d He rolled out of bed and shuffled to the porch.<\/p>\n \u201cBlack?\u201d Dad asked, rocking back on a wooden chair.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, that\u2019s all I drink anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d he said, handing Crazy the other cup on the coffee table. \u201cIt\u2019ll put hair on your chest.\u201d Dad smiled and slurped the top of his cup.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I worked in the fields, I used to watch the sun come up like this,\u201d Crazy said.<\/p>\n \u201cFields?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHoe squad. Fields. It\u2019s the worst job. The same job as slaves in America: picking vegetables and cutting grass with a hoe,\u201d Crazy said.<\/p>\n \u201cSounds like a good job for youngsters trying to knock the edge off.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou would think, but that\u2019s where I got into my first fight.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAhh? You win?\u201d Dad leaned in, staring at Crazy.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, well almost. But winning\u2019s not always a win because both of you lose\u2014and a loss is a win. So, a fight is a win-win or a loss. Out of the hundred and five fights I\u2019ve had, I\u2019ve never lost one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSon, I don\u2019t think you woke up yet.\u201d Dad glanced down at Crazy\u2019s cup.<\/p>\n Crazy looked out at the sheen of the dew covering the grass. \u201cThe grass is what started it,\u201d Crazy said in a daze. \u201cThe lead row said I wasn\u2019t cleaning my row.\u201d Crazy trailed off, searching the vast blue sky. \u201cThen, he called me a white boy. That was when Krooked Kracker elbowed me and threw a shoulder up.\u201d Crazy swallowed. \u201cThat\u2019s when I knew I had to. So, I yelled back, \u2018You\u2019re a boy, boy.\u2019 They all stopped rocking after that. Well, the black ones. They threw down their aggies.\u201d Crazy sat the cup on the table. \u201cI got two swings in. He got me in the eye. I hit the dirt and got pepper sprayed. Then, the lieutenant fired his pistol.\u201d Crazy tapped his fingers on his leg. \u201cI never missed a blade of grass after that or wasn\u2019t called out on it.\u201d Crazy picked up the cold coffee and swallowed a big gulp. \u201cI never missed a blade of grass. Never.\u201d<\/p>\n Dad sat his cup down, stood up to leave, then said, \u201cIt was better the last time you told me that story.\u201d<\/p>\n Crazy watched Dad\u2019s car head to work until it faded into the horizon. His phone buzzed. His thumbs fumbled with the touchscreen. \u201cDamn screen, where\u2019s the buttons at?\u201d Twenty minutes later, he texted Nathan back: Yeah, come over, bro. I\u2019m at the house chillin<\/em>.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n When Nathan arrived, he walked up the porch and gave Crazy a big homecoming hug. Crazy couldn\u2019t keep his eyes from watering; he wasn\u2019t sure if it was the hug or compassion. They sat on the porch with a round of fresh coffee.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, prison is like a fight club: the more time you do, the better you get,\u201d Crazy said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, you ever get your ass whooped?\u201d Nathan asked.<\/p>\n \u201cHell no. I never lost a fight.\u201d Crazy\u2019s hand shook, sipping the lies down with black gold.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember this one time, I sold a watch and the guy said, ‘Oh, you\u2019re jacked.\u2019 That\u2019s when I stole off on him,\u201d Crazy said.<\/p>\n \u201cStole off?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI hit him in the mouth, took his tooth out with that punch. Took my watch and the black bag he had.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBlack bag?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cInstant coffee. It\u2019s trash, really. After that, they shipped me. The law said I was a danger.\u201d Crazy pulled air through his teeth. \u201cHow many fights have you been in out here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUhh,\u201d Nathan blushed. \u201cNone. No one fights out here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d Crazy relaxed. \u201cNo one fights?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you fight at work, you\u2019re fired.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo fights? What happens if someone disrespects you? You know, calls you out of your name?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUhh, you, well, they don\u2019t.\u201d Nathan cast his eyes down to his phone. \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got to go, Chris. Got to pick the kids up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh yeah. Don\u2019t you have a son?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI got three. They all popped out a year apart. The oldest is in third grade.\u201d<\/p>\n Crazy looked at Nathan\u2019s young face, wondering if he looked like a father.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The next three months, Crazy stayed in his room. He was stuck on TikTok and YouTube, looking up prison stories: gangs, fights, horrors, and testimonies. Prison, prison, prison. He learned more about prison than a prisoner knew. He learned so much, he felt it built up on him, pushing him to a new standard: super penitentiary.<\/p>\n \u201cSuper penitentiary, yeah,\u201d Crazy said out loud.<\/p>\n Crazy was confined to his room. He didn\u2019t like the feeling of opening doors; when he did, he closed them quickly. The only time he left the house was on foot to visit the local HEB. He pushed an empty cart. He loved to admire the flashy, plastic logos, different varieties of chips, and junk food. As soon as he passed another shopper, he stiffened and furled his eyebrows. Crazy looked into shoppers’ eyes like he was going to say: What? Say something.<\/em><\/p>\n But he was scared\u2014scared of the questions they would ask about his tattoos. He knew they knew. He felt everyone knew he was fresh out.<\/p>\n Crazy hated seeing fellow convicts. He could spot them easily: the way they walked and the black ink on their body. He always quickened his pace and gave a strong nod. His body turned into a robotic character on a mission to some important place\u2014which was never the case for Crazy\u2014but he felt the need to lie with his body. The most terrifying conversation Crazy could think of was the one where he was working, how he was adjusting, because truthfully, he was tired of lying.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n One day, Crazy sat at the dinner table eating a bowl of Top Ramen noodle soup.<\/p>\n \u201cChris, you know it\u2019s May?\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n \u201cMay?\u201d Chris slurped noodles.<\/p>\n \u201cThe summer is coming. You know how much work goes on in the summer?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, and it\u2019s hot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChris, it\u2019s been six months. It\u2019s been long enough. Your father told me to tell you to take his truck out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDrive his truck?! The Silverado? That thing is big.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t start with me! It\u2019s the same size as your old truck,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n \u201cI never had a truck. I\u2019ve never had a job.\u201d Crazy picked the bowl up and chugged down the salty, yellow sludge. \u201cThey want to see past work history. I ain\u2019t got any.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChris, honey. You can\u2019t get history if you don\u2019t get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe jobs are history. Didn\u2019t you see what the news said about AI?! It\u2019s going to take all our jobs!\u201d<\/p>\n Mom grabbed the rag on the table and wiped the clean corner, dumped the rag in the sink, then turned to Crazy. \u201cThe keys are on the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n Crazy grabbed the keys, got in the truck, and headed down the road. The pressure of doing something for the first time compounded. Every lie Crazy told about the job he had in the past rattled in his head, like bouncing marbles. Crazy was so used to doing nothing; the thought of doing anything triggered his fight or flight. Job, car, housing, insurance, bills, wife, kids: all equaled responsibility. Life was too complicated for Crazy. He couldn\u2019t lie himself out of this one, so he did the only thing he knew would bring him home.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Main Street was as dead as it had always been, but the courthouse was busy as a beehive swarming with squad cars. Crazy locked eyes on a trooper as he rolled through the four way. The light turned green. Crazy froze. His heart leaped inside his chest.<\/p>\n The cop stared at him and the front license plate. Crazy stomped on the gas, burning the back tires.<\/p>\n Lights flickered, red and blue. The chase only took ten minutes.<\/p>\n Crazy jumped out before parking the truck and laid down on the soft asphalt. He grinned when the cold handcuffs clicked around his wrists. He laughed when the cop screamed at him to answer the questions. Crazy relaxed when he sat on the hard plastic backseat; he felt free looking through the metal bars lining the windows. The plexiglass in front of him had scratches that appeared random until he looked closer. He could make out the words: super penitentiary.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, Superman, you\u2019re headed back to the pen,\u201d the cop said.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Crazy sat on a rusted, circular stool in a cold hard cell. He flipped open a copy of The Odyssey<\/em>. The question dawned on him: Could a warrior ever return home?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe hair was another animal entirely.\u201d Funny, dark, surreal, and completely surprising: \u201cA Hairy Tale\u201d by Brian Stevens follows the weird life of the narrator\u2019s cellmate\u2019s hair. It is also deeply strange, in the best possible way.<\/p>\n \u2013Elizabeth McCracken<\/em><\/p>\n My celly\u2019s hair is a nightmare. The stuff just goes everywhere. Every morning, my first chore is to wipe all his hair off the floor. I clean the cell to no avail.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Ants occupied the cell when I first arrived. They crawled in through the cracks and marched along the walls. Any food or flesh that crossed their paths was quickly devoured. Their bites would leave itchy red welts on my hands and feet. I fought them tooth and nail with everything I had: baby powder, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, bleach. I was able to slow them down; as summer ended, the weather cooled and they eventually went away. Then, only the hair remained.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The hair was another animal together, but unlike the ants, it could not be contained. The fans in the cell created tornadoes of tangles that clung to anything they touched. There was hair on my bed; my clothes; in my mouth and nose; my coffee when I took a drink; and the drain when I used the sink. Hair came back around, got stuck in the fans, and when I rinsed my washcloth, hair stuck to my hands. The hair began to take on a life of its own: no matter how much I cleaned, I was never alone.<\/p>\n The hairs were long, black, and curly like the pubes of a buffalo. Bundles of them would roll across the ground like tumbleweeds blowing in the wind of the Wild West. Sometimes, I would mistake a stray strand for a cockroach as it scurried from one side of the cell to the other. Hairs strung along the shelves like broken spiderwebs in abandoned basements. The black hairs were bad, but the white ones were worse: they were invisible to the naked eye and could hide in plain sight. They were ghosts of dead hairs past that would continue to haunt me for eternity. Something drastic had to be done.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n No ordinary razor would ever be able to chop down that forest of frizz. I searched for some scissors but had to settle for a shank\u2014a dirty guy named Sanchez sold it to me for six soups and seven shots of coffee. He told me it was so sharp, it could slit a pig\u2019s throat with a single slice. I took his word and kept it carefully wrapped in a johnny sack. I certainly did not want to get caught with such a serious piece of contraband, so I had to act soon.<\/p>\n That night, I asked my celly to cut his hair; he refused. He knew it made a mess everyday but didn\u2019t seem very concerned about cleaning it up. He was also deeply religious and claimed his hair gave him strength like Samson.<\/p>\n As he drank himself to sleep, I thought about cutting some of his hair but then decided it all needed to be shaved. Upon further inspection, I realized: even with a shaved head, his hair would still grow back, and that would never do. No, his whole head would have to come off.<\/p>\n In a few short pages, Deanna Carney\u2019s wonderfully written \u201cSit. Stay.\u201d manages to look at a whole life and contemplates death and love and no less than the nature of time, all through the animals that the narrator has known since childhood. It is full of beauty and sadness and the paradox of loving animals when the human world is too much.<\/p>\n \u2013Elizabeth McCracken<\/em><\/p>\n Seven cats shared our cramped apartment in Virginia.<\/p>\n Family lore fills in false memories: a pungent cloud of clumped kitty litter, discarded beer bottles, marijuana, my soiled diapers.<\/p>\n Did my biological father\u2019s heroin addiction have a smell?<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A tomcat, Rocky, was the most beloved; his memory enshrined in poetry I inherited two decades later, after my father\u2019s heroin overdose. In hindsight, the name seems to be a foreshadowing.<\/p>\n I had to be younger than two. Momma hadn\u2019t yet escaped quickly to Texas, her skin a carry-on bag full of storm-hued bruises. She hadn\u2019t been ejected from the seat and flown through the windshield of a car. She hadn\u2019t died, leaving my father with nothing more than memories and cats.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In Texas, my Nannie and her new husband fed, clothed, and put me to bed after Momma died. Well, they must have, because I survived. And there was no one else to do it; at least, no one wanted to, as Nannie would later frequently remind me.<\/p>\n Someone gave me a puppy: a pile of ebony fluff we named Blackie. He stayed in the add-on room that housed the water softener. While he bathed me in the perfume of puppy breath, I licked fallen rock salt pellets meant to condition the hard Hill Country water running through pipes beneath our single-wide trailer.<\/p>\n One day, while I dipped my fingers in a bucket of sudsy water Nannie was using to wash our little brown truck, my puppy ran away. I cried all the salt from my body as Nannie and I called out for him, our two-person search party scouting the neighborhood in vain.<\/p>\n I had to be younger than four\u2014I still slept in the room that I used to share with Momma; my toys were still in the closet where her clothes used to be.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I wore a dress and socks with lace the day Nannie and her husband became my new mom and dad. The man behind the desk, making it legal, seemed much like the Wizard of Oz. We went to a lot, picked out a double-wide that had a bowl of fake fruit displayed in the kitchen.<\/p>\n Dad brought me a dachshund the color of a dried bloodstain\u2014his name was Mister. Barrel-bodied and surefooted, Mister was not adorably mini-sized: at the end of a leash, he may as well have been a trained sled dog. Any attempt to walk him ended with me dragged across the asphalt behind his drumstick legs.<\/p>\n Unable to bear my tears, Dad rehomed Mister. I begged for a sibling. Instead, Mom and I went to pick out a puppy from an apricot-colored patch of poodles. I named him Danny Boy, undoubtedly under Mom\u2019s influence. Many nights, I carried Danny Boy to bed with me, only to wake up and find him in Mom\u2019s room. From day one, that dog was decidedly hers.<\/p>\n I must have been younger than five. I hadn\u2019t graduated from kindergarten yet. Dad hadn\u2019t been crushed behind the steering wheel of an eighteen-wheeler. Mom hadn\u2019t gone to a hospital in Missouri and returned without him. Loving her hadn\u2019t become painful. Years passed between us alone in that house. Silence, anger, tears.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Walking home from the bus stop one fall afternoon, I heard a kitten\u2019s pleading cry beneath a garbage can. I took him home; bathed his long tabby fur; begged to keep him; and named him Tigea. Eventually, I taught him to walk on a leash.<\/p>\n I was younger than fifteen. I hadn\u2019t found out I was pregnant. I hadn\u2019t run away with my much older boyfriend. I hadn\u2019t felt fear and bravery swirl inside me. I wasn\u2019t yet married. I wasn\u2019t yet an adult.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n We found a German shepherd mix with floppy ears and named him Bogie: where our first daughter was born. In the next five years, we had a second daughter; then, a son. I had never known love as deep as what my heart held for them. Life was giggles and tiny toes.<\/p>\n I was younger than twenty-one. I was still able to kiss my children before bed, every night. My heart still knew happiness. I wasn\u2019t yet divorced. My children weren\u2019t kept from me. I hadn\u2019t begun drinking.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n At a gas station, I was offered a tiny red pup: the last of a litter, the runt no one wanted. I named her Lexi.<\/p>\n I taught her to sit, shake, and lay down. We went to parks and swam in rivers. I curled on the floor next to her, crying tears onto her copper coat when she died in the living room.<\/p>\n I was younger than thirty-nine. I hadn\u2019t learned the full consequence of surrendering my heart to someone who would help me destroy it. Or how my attempt to drown the world hurt anyone, other than myself. I hadn\u2019t noticed how far I had traveled from God or begun my eight-year sentence for DUI.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I am years away from the broken heart and mind that brought me here; months away from the freedom of open skies and second chances. I have had time to be still with my past and make peace with its voice. I\u2019ve found support. I know love.<\/p>\n One day, when my foundation is fully formed on the other side of this fence, I will get another dog, confident that no matter what comes, I have: the strength to sit, and the peace to stay through it, even when it rains\u2014<\/p>\n like cats and dogs<\/p>\n \u201cZen and the Art of Civil Commitment\u201d is a clear-eyed essay describing, with precision, elegance, and even dark humor, taking a questionnaire that begins the process of civil commitment, the Kafka-esque practice of keeping sex offenders incarcerated after their sentences are served. It is also, without sentiment, falsity, or self-importance, about looking for redemption inside of prison through both words and deeds, art, and other people.<\/p>\n \u2013Elizabeth McCracken<\/em><\/p>\n Yesterday, I was called to the Unit Education Building for a psychological exam. There, the proxy informed me the State of Texas selected me for the Civil Commitment Process. I floated outside my body. The proxy gave me a blue pencil, a test booklet, and a scantron for my answers.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Generally speaking, The Civil Commitment Process is designed to catch \u201cPredators with Behavioral Abnormalities\u201d\u2014the psychological exam is the beginning of that process. Failing the exam or refusing to take it is proof of the need for civil commitment.<\/p>\n Of course, I took it. I answered questions like: Do you ever feel like a soulless husk? Does your eyesight come and go? Is high jumping your favorite sport?<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Texas inmates are excluded from many things involving the legal system: child support, civil proceedings, divorces, and property seizures can all be commenced without the inmate present. But that\u2019s not all: an inmate may not even be notified until after the judgement. (An interesting side note: a Texas inmate can\u2019t interact with the parole board, unless they hire an attorney.)<\/p>\n Civil commitment is a little different but not much: it circumvents the Constitution, claiming to be a public safety or civil proceeding instead of a criminal one\u2014even though the result is the same. The difference is: the state must provide evidence an inmate is an immediate, continual threat upon release. The psychological exam is part of the state\u2019s case.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A lot of the questions, including those three, repeated in some form or another. About a dozen times. As I answered and re-answered the questions, I wondered if consistency was the metric. I wondered if there was an overlay, a graph that could show change. I wondered if there is something metaphysical about certain sports; if so, I would add breakdancing and fishing to the list.<\/p>\n I just don\u2019t know how you calculate points for contemplation or joy, if winning is the only metric.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I committed a horrible crime. It was inexcusable. I hurt my victim. I destroyed the respect and trust of the people I love forever.<\/p>\n As bad as that is, it isn\u2019t all. During my first years of prison, I was on both sides of every single, fucked up thing one person can do to another. Part of it was survival; part of it was anger. Regardless, all of it was wrong\u2014and none of it I can ever make right.<\/p>\n I have no desire to do crime nor break even the most mundane laws. I don\u2019t care if I ever leave prison. A free-world sex offender has little value. (You don\u2019t want a sex offender as a co-worker or a neighbor, so save the pep talk. Besides, that\u2019s not what this is.) Life after prison is punitive; in prison, no one pretends otherwise.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t care about dope prison politics or \u201cThe Price is Right.\u201d In the eyes of the administration and most inmates, that makes me a mystery\u2014and a mystery means: I\u2019m not a very good inmate.<\/p>\n There is nothing mysterious about the things I care about: reading and writing, collecting all the playwrights in the Library of America book series, the awards and honors I\u2019ve received despite being in prison. I care about finding a way to redeem myself.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I am the Assistant Program Coordinator for the assisted living dorm in my unit. Part of what I do is help inmates with disabilities and mobility issues. Sometimes, I help these men get and stay sober. I celebrate their recoveries\u2014from medical events or their addictions\u2014with cakes, coffee, and movies. Sometimes, if someone proves they can stay sober, I help pay off their drug debts. I do all of this out of my own locker. Most of the money comes from awards and stipends I\u2019ve earned as a writer.<\/p>\n I think redemption, like faith, is personal.<\/p>\n In prison, I have value: as a writer and a teacher, even if it is an incredibly flawed system. My eyesight and my ideas about sports aside, I am content with the world I\u2019ve created for myself in this community.<\/p>\n I feel fulfilled: a step on a journey towards peace.<\/p>\n In \u201cAunt Terry and Josiah King,\u201d Steven Perez writes beautifully and wrenchingly about the deep pain and separation from those he loves\u2014his dying aunt, his pregnant daughter\u2014and about looking for impossible consolation in what he\u2019s left with. The people in this essay are so well drawn they will break your heart.<\/p>\n \u2013Elizabeth McCracken<\/em><\/p>\n My mother\u2019s sister was on her deathbed. A surgeon had cut her open, gutted her. He was supposed to cut out scar tissue from two surgeries she had thirty years earlier; parts of her intestines were not properly digesting food. But he didn\u2019t cut out enough of the bad intestines, and she didn\u2019t wanna go through another surgery.<\/p>\n I called my mother at five-thirty in the morning. \u201cShe\u2019s already passing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt might be her last day.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n My daughter was six months pregnant. She was living with her baby\u2019s father in a garage apartment with one bedroom, a kitchenette, and a restroom with a stand-up shower. The baby\u2019s paternal grandfather had given them an old three-bedroom house. But the house was too rundown to live in.<\/p>\n My daughter applied for Section 8 housing aid. While she waited for assistance, her baby\u2019s father worked on the house, but he didn\u2019t have any money for the materials\u2014he had been recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctor said he couldn\u2019t work until he got better.<\/p>\n My daughter worked nights at Wienerschnitzel. She had spent the last four years hooked on meth, in and outta jail, and then had been completely off the meth for five months\u2014since the day she found out she was pregnant. She was twenty-five. My only child.<\/p>\n The child in her womb was a boy. My first grandchild.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n My daughter, my mother, and her sister lived on the Gulf Coast in Corpus Christi, Texas: eighty-five miles southeast from where I lived in prison. I was locked up at the Connally Unit, a maximum-security prison in South Texas. It was January 9th<\/sup>, 2026. I had been locked up for the last nineteen years, eleven more to go before I was eligible for parole.<\/p>\n I lived in a warehouse dorm, where ten-by-five-foot, one-man cubicles were racked together by the dozens. Inmates in white\u2014most of us Black or brown\u2014were scattered throughout the dorm in and out of our cubicles. Some of us sat on benches in the center of the dorm, watching ESPN highlights of Houston Texan games; others watched ABC News on another TV, where an ICE agent gunned down a white woman in her SUV.<\/p>\n I stood up from my cubicle: two charcoal-colored, synthetic wool blankets folded together, making four. A linen sheet. Plastic mattress on an iron bunk. A stack of books on the floor: Scoot McCloud\u2019s Understanding Comics<\/em>, Volume IV of Peter Kreeft\u2019s Socrates\u2019 Children<\/em>, The Georgia Review<\/em>, Susan Wise Bauer\u2019s The Well Educated Mind<\/em>, and Alec Karakatsanis\u2019s Copaganda<\/em>. On the desk: a breviary, a black plastic rosary, a tablet, and ear buds.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n On my way to the schoolhouse, guys from 4 Building\u2014a\u00a0 three-story-high square concrete building\u2014hollered at me from behind the metal grating of their cell windows. Razor wire fences separated me from them.<\/p>\n \u201cTell \u2019em to get us outta here!\u201d They said. \u201cTheres no officers in the building. No rover to open our doors. No laws in the control picket. We\u2019re trying to go to school.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right,\u201d I said. \u201cI gotchu.\u201d<\/p>\n Daylight had barely broken. The air was foggy and thick. I saw a wooden windmill covered in blue and yellow morning glories. I said to myself: They give glory to God through their beauty<\/em>.<\/p>\n I sat alone in the middle of a classroom, surrounded by wooden tables and white, plastic chairs. In front of me, a chalkboard on a turquoise wall with four questions:<\/p>\n What are some ways to analyze a story?<\/em><\/p>\n What makes a good story?<\/em><\/p>\n Why should books be banned?<\/em><\/p>\n What stories should be allowed in the classroom?<\/em><\/p>\n The wall to my right wasn\u2019t a wall at all; it was shatterproof glass. The sun revealed himself. I saw, outside the glass, two more concrete buildings; one was 8 Building, with cell numbers on the side underneath the windows: 72, 64, 56, 69, 61, 53. The other building a gym\u2014no windows.<\/p>\n My worktable was full of papers, envelopes, and folders; drafts of handwritten prison memoirs; carbon copies of typewritten drafts already submitted for publication; packets of lit mag info; submission guidelines; a Poets & Writers<\/em> magazine; an update from Malcom, a writer at PEN America; my tablet; and my earbuds.<\/p>\n I needed to write. I needed a shot of coffee. I needed to call my mother and check on my aunt.<\/p>\n I called my mother.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m at the nursing home,\u201d she said. \u201cI stepped outside of the room, so I can talk to you. Her feet are red. The blood\u2019s not circulating to her feet. I googled it. Means she has only about forty-eight hours left. The nurse bathed her. When she turned her on her side, she reached for the handrail on the side of the bed, but it wasn\u2019t there. She was moved to another room with a different bed. She can still hear, though. The hearing is the last thing to go. I put music on for her. You wanna talk to her?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. I do.\u201d<\/p>\n She put the phone next to her ear.<\/p>\n \u201cHi, T\u00eda,\u201d I said. \u201cI just called to say I love you with all my heart. I\u2019m praying for you. We\u2019ll be together one day.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A few days earlier, she asked me: \u201cSon, are they ever gonna let you outta there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, T\u00eda. They\u2019re gonna send me to school. And when I finish, they\u2019re gonna let me outta here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSteven, I had a dream. You were standing in front of me with your hands handcuffed behind your back. Then, they took the handcuffs off.\u201d She sang me a song from Stevie Wonder: I just called . . . to say . . . I love you . . . And I mean it, from the bottom of my heart.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n After we hung up, I opened up my tablet gallery app to a recent picture of her and my mother. My aunt was sitting at a round, wooden table with her left hand wrapped around a styrofoam Wienerschitzel cup on the table; her right hand rested above her stomach. She was wearing a pink short-sleeved blouse with white and black polka dots, a closed-lipped smile. The short distance between her nose and her chin revealed she wasn\u2019t wearing her dentures. Her nose\u00a0 was pointy, her cheeks chubby, and she had black and gray hair with a receding hairline. On the table sat a paper boat with what looked like a piece of deep-fried apple pie with smashed up gum bites. My mother was standing beside my aunt, her left arm resting around the back of my aunt\u2019s neck and shoulders. Leaning on her and wrapping her body around her, almost smothering. My mother was wearing a lavender blouse with a black skirt. Her hair was brown, her eyebrows thins. Her broken nose that never healed right. She was looking down at the dessert tray. Her left cheek resting on the right side of my aunt\u2019s head.<\/p>\n A painting of the Last Supper hung on the wall behind them.<\/p>\n I hadn\u2019t been able to hold my aunt for almost two decades. Would she even recognize me with a taper fade, a face full of black and white reaching for my chest? She was too sick to visit. My life was tied up in electric razor-wire fences and smothered in concrete.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n During our creative writing workshop, a discussion ensued: the difference between creating literary art for its own sake and creating literary art for publication and a paycheck.<\/p>\n Our facilitator, Mr. Hayes\u2014a white guy with a red mustache and a six-day beard, who stooped his head to walk through the doorway, wearing a blue plaid cowboy shirt with pearl buttons\u2014said publication was something he never really cared about. \u201cI\u2019m more interested in producing good art,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the money or publication.\u201d I thought about Kafka.<\/p>\n In Mr. Haye\u2019s mind, we could spend the next ten years on a five-thousand-word essay and still not finish. In my mind, I was like, yes, we need to stay focused, determined in producing literary art for its own sake<\/em>.<\/p>\n At the same time, most of our families are living in poverty. Our children and grandchildren need a home they call their own. They need a college education. We need to pay lawyers to get us outta here. And we need to build our own portfolios: so the free world can see we\u2019re not the monsters the state\u2019s lawyers said we were.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to say it\u2019s not about the money or publication when you and your families’ lives don\u2019t depend on your writing.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n By eight o\u2019clock, that night, I was lying in my bunk, praying a rosary for my aunt. My mother was at home, getting ready to go back to the nursing home.<\/p>\n I woke up at six in the morning and lay in my bunk, fingering rosary beads while reciting Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Glory Be\u2019s. For breakfast I had a pouch of Vienna sausages and a generic chocolate protein shake poured over a bowl of generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch. An awful smell of mildew lingered in the air.<\/p>\n I remembered my Aunt Terry in the kitchen cooking scrambled eggs mixed with potatoes, pork chops in salsa, and refried beans. The smell of homemade flour tortillas on the comal.<\/p>\n I sat at my desk in the bunk, staring at a pencil draft of thoughts on sheets of college-ruled paper. At ten o\u2019clock in the morning, I called my mother.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s gone, son. She passed away last night, at nine-fifteen. She was glowing, in bed. The Lord took her.\u201d<\/p>\n My mother\u2019s only sister. Her last remaining sibling.<\/p>\n I sat and listened to my mother weep. \u201cShe\u2019s not suffering anymore, Mom. She\u2019s with the Lord. And God is now giving you a grandson.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re right, son. They say that for every person who dies, another is born. She wants to name him Josiah King.\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth McCracken<\/strong> is the author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction, including her most recent book, A Long Game<\/em>. She was the winner of the 2014 Story Prize for Thunderstruck and Other Stories<\/em> and has been a finalist for the National Book Award. Her stories have won three Pushcart Prizes, two National Magazine Awards, and have appeared in five editions of The Best American Short Stories<\/em>. She taught fiction at The University of Texas at Austin where she held the title of the James A. Michener Chair in Fiction. She retired in May 2026 after 35 years of teaching and moved to England with her family.<\/p>\n Charles Hill<\/strong> is a writer in Texas.<\/p>\n Brian Stevens<\/strong> is a writer in his third year of the Pen City Writers class and is located in the Connally Unit Texas State Prison.<\/p>\n Deanna Carney<\/strong> is a writer and a recipient of the 2025 American Short Fiction Insider Prize in fiction for \u201cBreach.\u201d Hailing from San Antonio, Texas, Deanna is a proud mother of three and an excitable introvert. For her, writing is a shared connection to parents she lost too soon: a way to share, speak out, and love.<\/p>\n Matthew Mendoza<\/strong> is a playwright and poet who dabbles in fiction and nonfiction. His first book of poems, DIY Prison Project<\/em>, was published in 2025 by Evening Street Press. Since 2018, his plays have been produced as podcasts and performed at festivals throughout the country. What\u2019s Prison Like?<\/em> was a 27th Annual Webby Award honoree in the Crime & Justice category.<\/p>\n Steven Perez<\/strong> is a fellow of the University of Texas at Austin English Department. He\u2019s been studying creative writing under the author and professor Deb Olin Unferth for nine years. He\u2019s a member of the Pen City Writers. He\u2019s assigned to the Connally Unit maximum security prison in Kenedy, Texas. He\u2019s currently awaiting transfer to earn a BA degree and an MA degree in humanities at the University of Houston Clear Lake. He was the 2025 American Short Fiction Insider Prize Runner-up in Nonfiction for \u201cThe Life and Mind of the Prisoner.\u201d<\/p>\n Sergio Muro<\/strong> is a writer from Laredo, Texas. He is a Senior Editor and the Insider Prize Director at American Short Fiction<\/em> and an editor for El Alboroto at The Rumpus<\/em>. Sergio is at work on a short story collection centered around the Mexican diaspora.<\/p>\n Our sincerest gratitude to the Insider Prize volunteers for their time and dedication to this project: Robin Chotzinoff, Eric Dexheimer, Chanda Grubbs, Alice Kim Hawari, Seth MacLowery, Abhijith Ravinutala, Sol Wooten, Tommy Mouton of Huston-Tillotson University, and American Short Fiction<\/em> Senior Editor Adam Soto.<\/p>\n About HT\u2019s Institute for Justice and Equity<\/strong><\/p>\n Huston-Tillotson University\u2019s Institute for Justice and Equity (IJE) is dedicated to advancing and applying justice and equity knowledge. IJE aims to infuse equity principles and practices into what we do at HT\u2014teaching, learning, research, administration, service, and community engagement.<\/p>\n About Huston-Tillotson University<\/strong><\/p>\n Huston-Tillotson University is a private historically black university in Austin, Texas. Established in 1875, Huston-Tillotson University was the first institution of higher learning in Austin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing is a challenge, at every level. There are constant pressures acting upon a writer: juggling between responsibilities and work; prioritizing health; making and somehow slowing down time; even, perhaps, the arresting, infinite possibilities of the page. Not to mention,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":276653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43201,43069,6,43070,43075],"tags":[1199,3553,101,70400,17206,188],"class_list":["post-276648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-news-newsandculture","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-short-story","tag-american-short-fiction","tag-elizabeth-mccracken","tag-essays","tag-insider-prize","tag-literary-prizes","tag-short-stories","story-type-incarcerated-writers"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Y4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ASF-copy.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276461,"date":"2026-09-09T05:06:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T09:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276461"},"modified":"2026-09-07T09:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:01:07","slug":"the-literary-agent-who-lost-the-narrative-thread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-literary-agent-who-lost-the-narrative-thread\/","title":{"rendered":"The Literary Agent Who Lost the Narrative Thread"},"content":{"rendered":" As a literary agent, I\u2019ve spent years shaping the stories of other people\u2019s grief. There was the Pulitzer-nominated journalist who\u2019d lost her only child when he was seven. And the Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson who, upon her father\u2019s death, finally took the stories of his lineage seriously. Then there was the New York Times <\/i>bestselling author who cared for young animals only to have to euthanize them when the time came.<\/p>\n Over the years, I\u2019d built a business around refining narratives of heartbreak to reveal stories of earned strength. Yet, in the midst of my own grief story, I was cracking.<\/p>\n Literally.<\/p>\n It was months after my mother\u2019s senseless death in a car accident, and I was at the dentist again. A part of me felt like Veda Sultenfuss from My Girl<\/i>, with that invisible chicken bone down her throat. But I was sure: my tooth was cracking.<\/p>\n The book was replete with metaphors about the healing power of nature and the way that plants adapt to change due to the natural cycles of life and death.<\/p>\n The dentist was skeptical at first, but soon after \u201ctaking a look,\u201d admitted that my molar had indeed cracked down to the gumline. He\u2019d seal it, and we\u2019d hope the bonding held.<\/p>\n \u201cHow long will it last?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe months. Maybe forever,\u201d the dentist said. \u201cWe cannot know.\u201d<\/p>\n This felt too on the nose, like a metaphor I\u2019d have edited out of someone else\u2019s book.<\/p>\n I earned my publishing stripes representing heavy-hitting works of narrative nonfiction\u2014the kinds of books that went on to be New York Times<\/i> Editors\u2019 Picks<\/a> and that were nominated for prestigious awards<\/a>. Only now, every time I tried to read nonfiction, I felt sick.<\/p>\n Each time I opened another book proposal, intent on doing what I\u2019d always done\u2014using the skills I\u2019d acquired as a PhD student in Logic and Philosophy of Science to interrogate the core argument\u2014the words on the page blurred together. Those big ideas, which had once helped me make sense of life\u2019s complexity, allowing me to reframe my own story into one of triumph, now felt irrelevant, like I\u2019d opened a book written in a language that had no frame of reference in my world.<\/p>\n I needed to get back to doing my job. I needed my teeth to stop breaking. I needed to find my footing. But what I really <\/i>needed, I decided, was what I\u2019d provided so many of my authors: a narrative to reframe loss into something that made sense.<\/p>\n I took over a month off from work. I spent time with my husband and my two young kids, and I wrote.<\/p>\n I wrote sad essays, which never found their narrative thrust. I wrote letters to my mom, which stumbled through bouts of melancholy before I finally admitted there was no plot. I wrote emails I never sent and emails I did send, but no line I ever cast managed to reel in anything healing.<\/p>\n So I decided to write something different, a book unlike anything that, at that time, I would have represented. I wrote fantasy.<\/p>\n The book was replete with metaphors about the healing power of nature and the way that plants adapt to change due to the natural cycles of life and death. It was a perfectly contained story, with every narrative thread tied up in a neat bow, showing how one could use grief as a portal to access true strength.<\/p>\n At long last, I\u2019d created a narrative that oriented me within my own story.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you thought about therapy?\u201d the doctor asked gently.<\/p>\n I was overcome with relief. With those two simple words, this chapter of my life was finally over:<\/p>\n THE END<\/p>\n A few months later, I went back to the dentist for my bi-annual check. The hygienist told me there were hairline fractures along the tops of my teeth. My teeth also showed signs of excessive wear. He told me to wear my mouthguard not only at night but when I was exercising, too. \u201cAnd please,\u201d he said. \u201cFind a way to manage your stress.\u201d<\/p>\n I left the office appalled. I\u2019d exorcised my grief through narrative. I\u2019d used that story to rise above the pain. Didn\u2019t this man know that I was officially healed?<\/p>\n A few months later, I went to the doctor\u2019s for my annual physical. My blood pressure was so high that the nurse had to measure it twice. That was common, she said. It happened to lots of people. I didn\u2019t tell her that it didn\u2019t usually happen to me.<\/p>\n The doctor, a kindly man I\u2019d always tried to impress by saying things like I often work with physicians on their books<\/i>, asked how I was doing. I told him how I\u2019d lost the last bit of weight I\u2019d been carrying since my baby.<\/p>\n He congratulated me as he typed into his wall-mounted computer. \u201cAny changes to your medical history?\u201d<\/p>\n It was then, with that simple but brutal question, that I started to cry.<\/p>\n Over the span of a few heartbeats, tears swelled my throat, making it difficult to speak.<\/p>\n Once I got my bearings, I explained that I was only crying because I hadn\u2019t been sleeping well. I hadn\u2019t been sleeping well because my mom had died six months earlier. It was a car crash that wasn\u2019t her fault. Did that count as a change in my medical history? Probably not. But it was worth mentioning, right?<\/p>\n \u201cHave you thought about therapy?\u201d the doctor asked gently.<\/p>\n I told him I didn\u2019t like therapy. I rattled off reasons why it didn\u2019t work for me. He handed me scratchy paper towels and explained why it might be worth a try.<\/p>\n Begrudgingly, I left his office under the care of an automated service that matched me up with a provider and a promise that he\u2019d follow up to see how I was.<\/p>\n I began to identify with the discomfort of the moment instead of crafting a story to contextualize my grief so I could snap out of it and be somewhere else.<\/p>\n When I met Quatasia a few weeks later, the first thing I said to her was that I didn\u2019t want to be there. She said something validating and then asked questions in order to get to know me. I tried to impress her with all the things I normally say when I\u2019m feeling insecure\u2014about growing up on reduced-fare lunches and how I started college at 15, about getting into a PhD program and then becoming a literary agent and also an author. Then she said words I\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what I\u2019m hearing is\u2014and I could be wrong about this\u2014that you make up stories so you don\u2019t have to feel your own emotions. Is that right?\u201d<\/p>\n I felt her words like an air bubble in my chest, so uncomfortable that I was struck with hysterical laughter.<\/p>\n At the end of the session, Quatasia asked: Did I want to make an appointment for next week?<\/p>\n Over the next six months of therapy, as I told and re-told the story of my life, as I complained about therapists treating humans as metaphors, and talked endlessly about the perils of religion because Quatasia had once mentioned Jesus and I wanted to see if my atheism would make her reject me\u2014I slowly began to lower my shields. I began to name my emotions instead of just intellectualizing them. I began to identify with the discomfort of the moment instead of crafting a story to contextualize my grief so I could snap out of it and be somewhere else.<\/p>\n Slowly, week by week, I began undoing the vast narrative structures I\u2019d erected in order to avoid vulnerability. In doing so, I started to realize that, contrary to what I\u2019d always believed, my life is not actually a narrative. I am not supposed to show an arc of growth and change over time in order for my life and my experiences to have meaning.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t confuse the way that I communicate my story with the story itself.<\/p>\n The point of creating a story is not to supplant a person\u2019s experiences but supplement them. Stories are just another way of looking sideways at a thing that can have no satisfiable deconstruction. Even if I might have survived a great many horrible things through the clever use of narrative\u2014and in fact had turned my ability to do so into a career\u2014the ability to transform heartbreak into redemption can be maladaptive if it means I cannot be in the moment with my own pain.<\/p>\n I still grind my teeth. There are some days I still have a hard time wanting to eat. Likewise, there are still nights when I struggle to sleep because my mom should be living and she isn\u2019t and it is hard<\/i>, sitting with the rock-heavy truth of that.<\/p>\n Someday I might have a new perspective. Someday I might reframe this whole period of life depending on what I need to glean in that moment. Someday my story might change.<\/p>\n Every day I keep sitting with the tension of an unresolved narrative is a day I might resurface another memory of my mom. The dynamism of that remembering is what will keep my mom alive in me, like a second pulse, which, more than a clean resolution, is exactly what I\u2019ve been aching for all along\u2014even if I didn\u2019t always know it.<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the thing about turning unruly experiences into fixed stories: it doesn\u2019t always give us room to change how we see the events of our lives\u2014nor how we see the ones we love.<\/p>\n I\u2019m back at work now, slinging books with nearly the same gusto as before my mom died, teasing out complex human experiences into stories that others can comprehend. But I no longer allow the books I agent nor the ones I write to substitute for being in the moment with my real life. I don\u2019t confuse the way that I communicate my story with the story itself.<\/p>\n I let my own narrative be messy.<\/p>\n __________________________________<\/p>\n Siren Says<\/a>\u00a0by Jennifer Michelle Herrera is available from Putnam.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a literary agent, I\u2019ve spent years shaping the stories of other people\u2019s grief. There was the Pulitzer-nominated journalist who\u2019d lost her only child when he was seven. And the Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson who, upon her father\u2019s death,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31912,"featured_media":276464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43071,43069,6,43103,43092],"tags":[1149,745,111781,21883,39565,111782,1532,1341],"class_list":["post-276461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craft-and-advice","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-memoir","category-newsandculture","tag-craft","tag-grief","tag-jennifer-michelle-herrera","tag-narrative-structure","tag-putnam","tag-siren-says","tag-therapy","tag-writing"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19V3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/right-sidebar-banner-images.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276435,"date":"2026-09-09T05:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T09:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276435"},"modified":"2026-09-07T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:02:09","slug":"a-legal-history-of-anti-chinese-racism-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/a-legal-history-of-anti-chinese-racism-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"A Legal History of Anti-Chinese Racism in America"},"content":{"rendered":" In the history of the Chinese in America, the border has caught our attention and held it. Chinese migrants\u2019 attempts to cross the border, and America\u2019s attempts to stop them, is the story that historians have told and retold. But long before the Chinese faced the first exclusion laws, and long afterward as well, they endured a racial regime within America every day. This book is the history of that racial regime and the lives it touched.<\/p>\n Arriving on California\u2019s shores in the 1850s, Chinese migrants entered a young nation with an old tradition of white dominance. White Californians did not agree on what to do with these \u201cexotic\u201d newcomers, but they were certain that the Chinese did not belong. Set apart by their race, religion, and supposedly slavish tendencies, the Chinese could not be enfolded into the nation as others would be\u2026They had no future in America, or at least that is what lawmakers hoped.<\/p>\n To make it so, western states, territories, and towns enacted anti-Chinese laws. Laws and legal customs regulated the ability of Chinese people to work, operate a business, own property, testify in court, seek education, and form families. For the Chinese, these laws were both more and less than they appeared on paper; more because of the unspoken level of violence that could lie behind them, less because many failed to withstand Chinese resistance\u2026<\/p>\n Chinese resistance in the courts, and outside them, guaranteed that racial laws would not dictate reality.<\/p>\n To uncover the heretofore obscure stories contained in this book, I journeyed to thirty-three archives in California, Oregon, and Washington in search of local legal records\u2026What I found in these archives was a remarkable and practically untapped collection of Chinese legal records, including criminal prosecutions, civil complaints, jail registers, prison records, and mugshots. Of particular note is the existence of Chinese legal testimony, some of which dates from the nineteenth century when such Chinese migrant \u201cvoices\u201d are particularly rare. In the many periods and places where scholars have yet to find Chinese-language accounts, Chinese legal testimony offers an unparalleled view of daily life in the American West. This is especially the case for Chinese women and girls, who left behind virtually no written records.<\/p>\n The view offered by legal testimony, however, is still partially obscured. Most Chinese interactions with the law left no mark, and when they did, their impression was usually faint. Court transcripts that include detailed Chinese testimony are rare, in part because discriminatory testimony laws kept Chinese silent in most court proceedings for decades. And what Chinese testimony survives was mediated by outsiders, because the Chinese usually testified with the help of English-language translators and the legal guidance of their white attorneys. To make matters worse, the Chinese, like all witnesses, came to court to tell stories, not all of which were true…<\/p>\n Still, much can be learned from legal transcripts. Chinese migrants began going to court as soon as they arrived in the 1850s, negotiating the terms of their inclusion as complainants, plaintiffs, witnesses, and defendants. They carried with them knowledge of the Chinese legal system and soon adapted to the American system. Chinese resistance in the courts, and outside them, guaranteed that racial laws would not dictate reality. Scholars have shown that law and society are mutually constituted, that legal rights spill into social relations and flow from them. The terms of conditional inclusion, then, were not simply determined by the rights due to the Chinese under the law; they were dependent on the rights the Chinese managed to exert in daily practice. This cut two ways. Sometimes the Chinese managed to claim powers not granted to them by formal law, but at other times they were denied privileges they were guaranteed by formal law. Legal custom could be gentler than the law, or it could be harsher. Within the gaps between formal law and legal custom lie stories of both arbitrary state force and successful Chinese resistance. More often than not, published court opinions and legal statutes smooth over this messy legal landscape, but trial transcripts can reveal more of the bumps and crevices\u2026<\/p>\n Many, many stories emerge from these sources. Some of these stories are myths, fearful tales about wily \u201cChinamen\u201d and the threats they posed. These narratives provided powerful motivation and justification for racial policing and I have chosen to organize my chapters around these stereotypes. There was the Chinese \u201ccoolie,\u201d who out-competed white labor and sent his profits to China; the Chinese \u201ccriminal,\u201d who deceived his victims and the police; the Chinese \u201calien,\u201d who did not belong but demanded civil rights; the \u201cChinawoman,\u201d who represented the return of slavery; the Chinese \u201cinvader,\u201d who contaminated white neighborhoods; the Chinese \u201cpredator,\u201d who preyed on white girls; and the Chinese \u201cimmigrant,\u201d who threatened to overrun America. Across seven chapters I consider the regulations that emerged from these racial myths and helped to reinforce them.<\/p>\n Each chapter describes racial myths and regulations, but each chapter also includes the stories of real people: Chinese migrants who encountered, accommodated, and refused the preconditions for their inclusion. A few of these narratives may be familiar, because they resulted in landmark court cases. But most Chinese who went to court left little mark on American law, history, or memory. Instead, all that remains is a glimpse of their experiences.<\/p>\n As I sifted through extensive legal archives, I found that the volume of fragmentary stories tested my attention, my empathy, and my willingness to hold contradictions in my mind. You may be tested as well. I have tried to hear each voice above the din, but the cacophony can become overwhelming. I think that is okay. Even when distinct voices blur into noise, the sound can still move us.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Let us start with Pany Lowe. Perhaps we can see through his eyes. Lowe was not one of the \u201c2700 boy babies of San Francisco Chinatown,\u201d but in many ways his experience resembled theirs. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1873, Lowe journeyed to China for his education, and then returned to America, moving between major western cities, first San Francisco, then Denver, on to Portland and Seattle. By the time Lowe sat down with a researcher for an interview in 1924, he had acquired a lifetime of knowledge about the racial regime in the American West.<\/p>\n He had learned, for example, that he could go to some restaurants and not others. Once I go into restaurant, they refused to serve me. I no want to cause trouble so I just walk out. Whole lots of things like this happen but I forget. Now when I want to eat I go to chop house<\/i>. No trouble th[ere]<\/i>. He knew some restaurants did not want him, knew chop suey joints were safe, and made the choice to avoid possible humiliation.<\/p>\n Most Chinese who went to court left little mark on American law, history, or memory. Instead, all that remains is a glimpse of their experiences.<\/p>\n He also learned he could go to some barbers and not others. Lots of time people insult me. Once I remember I go barber shop. I sit one hour no ask me what I want. Pretty soon barber say what you want. I tell him I want hair cut, how much? He say $3.00. That make me mad but I make him cut my hair just the same\u2026I never go to white bastard again<\/i>. He knew that price gouging was a form of discrimination, but also that money could sometimes buy access.<\/p>\n Over time he learned that legal action could also open seemingly closed doors. My second wife take my little girl born in this country to have her hair cut at Frederick & Nelson. They say they very sorry, no cut Chinese hair. Oh, my wife get mad. She go see my lawyer tell him about it, Mr. Sullivan. He write letter to Frederick & Nelson. They write letter back and apologize<\/i>. Lowe knew the pain of being refused service, he knew illegal discrimination when he saw it, but he also learned that avoidance was easier than confrontation. All the time I tell my wife keep away from those swell places, only make trouble<\/i>. He knew how to mind racial rules and move on.<\/p>\n He learned he could live in some neighborhoods and not others. When I in Portland I want to live in residential district but they make lots of trouble [if] you try to live outside China town. <\/i>He learned about the trouble from his friends. One friend, he born in this country, he buy $6,000 house in rose city district. White people make hell lot trouble for him. They take it to court. He fight it. Just the same they kick him out. He can own house but no live here<\/i>.<\/p>\n Lowe knew the Chinese were supposed to be equally protected by American law. But he knew that, in practice, the law protected white neighborhoods from Chinese encroachment. I think that very unjust. Those people very uncivilized, have no regard for humanity. So when my friend had so much trouble I decided to stay in China town. Nobody care there<\/i>. He knew some spaces were reserved for white people and chose not to test the line.<\/p>\n After the exclusion laws passed, Lowe also learned the consequences of border control. My people be in this country long time. My grandfather come to this country. When I in China he tell me about work on railroad and work in laundry. Before when he go back they have the check system. Make Chinese carry paper tell who they are. Some inspector today make Chinaman show card. All same dog license. I say who the hell are you. He show me United States Secret man. I tell him I born in this country\u2026He say all right, but he take some other men, lo[c]k them up for a day or two<\/i>. Lowe knew that exclusion made all Chinese residents vulnerable and a missing paper could mean deportation.<\/p>\n Finally, Lowe learned that American law held uncommon sway over his marriage prospects. He could marry some women and not others. Not allowed marry white girl. Not enough American born Chinese to go around. China only place to get wife. Not allowed to bring them back. For Chinaman, very unjust. Not human. Very uncivilized<\/i>. He knew that anti-miscegenation and exclusion laws would forever mark his family. He knew that enduring such indignities was a condition of living in the American West.<\/p>\n Given all this, Pany Lowe knew that he would never belong. When I was young fellow I felt that I American. I no Chinaman. Now I get more sense. I know I never be American, always Chinaman. I no care now anymore<\/i>. He lived at the margins of America society and didn\u2019t know if he should hope for more. Very hard to tell whether people treat better now than before. Some time, I think so, some time I don\u2019t think so<\/i>. He did not know if there had been progress.<\/p>\n Still, he held out hope that white Americans could learn. I hope this survey do lot of good for Chinese people. Make American people realize that Chinese people are humans\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n I think very few American people really know anything about Chinese<\/i>.<\/p>\n _______________________________<\/p>\n From<\/em> John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law<\/a> by Beth Lew-Williams. Copyright \u00a9 2026. Available from Harvard University Press. <\/em>John Doe Chinaman has been shortlisted for the 2026 Cundill History Prize.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the history of the Chinese in America, the border has caught our attention and held it. Chinese migrants\u2019 attempts to cross the border, and America\u2019s attempts to stop them, is the story that historians have told and retold. But<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31904,"featured_media":276440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,43101,43092],"tags":[111978,21695,112113,88328,60417,6805,112114,6556,72708,104],"class_list":["post-276435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-history","category-newsandculture","tag-2026-cundill-history-prize","tag-american-west","tag-beth-lew-williams","tag-chinese-american-history","tag-cundill-history-prize","tag-harvard-university-press","tag-john-doe-chinaman-a-forgotten-history-of-chinese-life-under-american-racial-law","tag-law","tag-legal-history","tag-racism","story-type-cundill-history-prize"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19UD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Chinese_American_Fishermen_b-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276684,"date":"2026-09-09T04:10:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276684"},"modified":"2026-09-05T14:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T18:20:17","slug":"adam-erlich-sachs-on-heinrich-von-kleists-michael-kohlhaas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/adam-erlich-sachs-on-heinrich-von-kleists-michael-kohlhaas\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Erlich Sachs on Heinrich von Kleist\u2019s Michael Kohlhaas<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":" The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast features a series of conversations with past and present Windham-Campbell Prize<\/a> winners about their favorite books and plays. Hosted by Michael Kelleher.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n For the final episode of our 2026 season, Mike talks with Adam Erlich Sachs (recipient of a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction) about the historical Kantian thicket of Heinrich von Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas<\/em>, translated by Michael Hoffman.<\/p>\n Adam Ehrlich Sachs<\/strong> is the author of three works of fiction\u2014Gretel and the Great War\u00a0<\/em>(2024),\u00a0The Organs of Sense\u00a0<\/em>(2019), and\u00a0Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables, and Problems<\/em>\u00a0(2016). The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature (2018) and an American Academy in Berlin Fellowship (2019), Sachs lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his family.<\/p>\n*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
First place, Fiction:
\nCharles Hill, \u201cPrisoner\u2019s Home\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\nPrisoner\u2019s Home
\n<\/strong>by Charles Hill<\/em><\/h1>\n*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Runner-up, Fiction:
\nBrian Stevens, \u201cA Hairy Tale\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\nA Hairy Tale
\n<\/strong>by Brian Stevens<\/em><\/h1>\n*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
First place, Nonfiction:
\nDeanna Carney, \u201cSit. Stay.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\nSit. Stay.
\n<\/strong>by Deanna Carney<\/em><\/h1>\n*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Runner-up, Nonfiction:
\nMatthew Mendoza, \u201cZen and the Art of Civil Commitment\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\nZen and the Art of Civil Commitment
\n<\/strong>by Matthew Mendoza<\/em><\/h1>\n*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Runner-up, Nonfiction:
\nSteven Perez, \u201cAunt Terry and Josiah King\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\nAunt Terry and Josiah King
\n<\/strong>by Steven Perez<\/h1>\n*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Biographies<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/siren-says-199x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/john-doe-chinaman-199x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\n