Here’s a wee smattering of some of the writings I’m most proud of at the moment. I also did the cover art for all of these, made the illustration for the Dutch article, and used my own photography for the Scamography pieces on India and Egypt. (Photography for Complicated Women: Rodolfo Rangel. Headshot for 25 Years A New Yorker: Greg Broom )
(please click on each image to read the article)
“…It’s not the event I expected to come back to South Carolina for. Instead of celebrating her birthday over styrofoam cups full of peach cobbler at Dukes Bar-B-Que, Mother was being wheeled into an oven at a crematorium in North Augusta on the day she should have turned 69.”
“… A schoolgirl in the seat ahead of me turns around to translate. She looks at the ticket and back at me quizzically. “Madam, this train is not going to the city of the Taj Mahal. This train is going in the opposite direction. It is going to the border of Pakistan.” CLICK TO CONTINUE
“When the Dutch arrived in the New World in the early 17th century they brought more than coleslaw [koolsla] in their knapsacks [knapzak — snack bag], and cookies [koejkes] in their rucksacks [rugzak — backpack]: They also brought along a wealth of words that wiggled [wiggelen] their way into the American and British lexicons…” CLICK TO CONTINUE
“On June 1, 1995, on Second Avenue and 40th Street, I bought a mop.
The supermarket was anything but. The fluorescent lights pulsed above the paltry selection of anemic tomatoes; peaches little bigger than their pits, apples dented. The checkered linoleum was peeling by the frozen foods, ammonia fogged a pile of open-air shrimp, and a sole crab in a basket looked as though it’d given up the fight days ago, his right claw stiffed in a salute to Tuesday…” CLICK TO CONTINUE
“Jet lag is a truth serum.
I knew as I was touching down at Indira Gandhi International at 02:30 — wearied from twenty-four hours of transit — I’d be easy prey if I admitted it was my first time in India. Only an idiot would admit that.
‘First time to my country?’
‘Yes!’…”
“His doe eyes looked up at me pleadingly. “Please, lady?” I exhaled and relaxed my shoulders. It was refreshing to let my guard down and talk to a Cairene who seemed genuine.
Nasaar told me about his family and his schooling as we strolled though the musty galleries surrounded on either side by golden sarcophagi, and crooks and flails of every dynasty. He excitedly explained the weight of this and the age of that, and he seemed to know his Tuthmosis II from his Tuthmosis VIII, which was odd since the dynasty only went to seven. But never mind…” CLICK TO CONTINUE
“She is wearing a cream-colored turtleneck and sunglasses as large as apricots. She is speeding through a strobe of pines, past the stretched morning shadows of the sweetgum trees, past the Burger Chef. We are driving to the J. M. Field’s department store.
In the vastness of the parking lot, I see my grandmother’s station wagon.
There are hugs and ‘oh, no’s’, and Grandma Vivian rubs Mother’s upper arm and says, ‘Oh my God, oh my God. Oh, Karlene, no.’…” continue