Category: Featured Writing

It doesn’t pay to read to your daughter before bed and then have a glass of wine while watching the 10:00 news on a stormy night. Back in the beginning of June, Meghan Markle’s and Prince Harry’s daughter, Lilibet, was born. An explanation was given on how the baby got her name. As a child, … Continue reading Elizabeth’s Nightmare by June Kosier

Before I retired, I was a dialysis nurse at the VA and belonged to a professional group known as the ANNA which stood for the American Nephrology Nurses Association. The ANNA held local, regional and national meetings. A neighbor of mine, Marianne, was a pediatric nephrology nurse at the Albany Medical Center and also belonged … Continue reading Marianne No Longer Travels with Me by June Kosier

“Jeez, Hon, this reminds me of the lower east side at home in New York City. Check it out!” My Fellow agrees with a smile and says, “Yeah, but we never had a beautiful view of the city from the bathtub like this!” This bathtub is in the kitchen. It’s like the railroad apartments we … Continue reading Brother & Sister #2 by Leslie Sittner

The ghost of Harold Harwood haunts the Hamlet of Ironville in Essex County, New York,  The hamlet is just a neighborhood, really: the Congregational Church with large windows flanking its entrance, facial like; the gable fronted Parsonage; the 1828 Penfield Homestead; the Greek revival Harwood House and, even earlier than these, the 1827 rooming house … Continue reading A GHOSTLY VACATION IN THE ADIRONDACKS by Edward Pontacoloni

I don't want to associate the experience with the word 'vacation,' but it was a trip away from home. Many details of that nightmare trip have thankfully faded, but one remains. We had not camped anywhere before and my mother, who had a difficult time functioning in the kitchen at home, assumed there would be … Continue reading A Vacation I’d Rather Forget by Duane L. Herrmann

"Mabel! Mabel!" John excitedly jostled his wife in bed sound asleep as soon as he got to his home in Phillipsburg, Kansas. He hadn't yet begun to undress this night in 1912. Though it was the middle of the night, he was too excited. "You won't believe what I just saw down at the train … Continue reading Strangers Passing Through Town by Duane L. Herrmann

ascertain-assiduous-derivative-existential-plethora-prudent-Sisyphean-subsequent-trepidation-worrisome At first he knew that it was an existential problem—that sadly, a worrisome decision he must make. While he was normally assiduous in his thinking, and always prudent in his considerations, he felt great trepidation that friends would assume his idea was derivative, and, just like his brothers attempt, it would subsequently fail. Without … Continue reading Untitled by Leslie Sittner

I would like to tell you about my great grandmother. Her name is June, but everyone in our house calls her “Ma”. I am her best friend. I live with her and she takes good care of me. Every morning we have breakfast together and she is a great cook. She fixes me a sausage … Continue reading Ma by June Kosier

It was a library, an ancient one, I could tell by the style of the shelves and stairs. No library like that had been built in hundreds of year, and certainly not in America. The books, I could also tell, were huge; as if they were vellum manuscripts hand copied in the middle ages. I … Continue reading Library Post card by Duane L. Herrmann