Underground Man might be the most miserable character ever to appear in literature. He’s the kind of character you love to hate and hate to love. He’s a spiteful clown, a thorn […]
Literary Anti-heroes: Underground Man and Me
Suzanne Heagy
Suzanne Heagy is a writer, teacher, and editor. Her first novel, Love Lets Us Down (2015), was recognized as a finalist in the 18th annual Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards. Her story, “Eden on a Hill” was a finalist in the 2020 West Virginia Fiction Competition. Her work has appeared in Pleiades, Untamed Ink, Dos Passos Review, Poetry Southeast, and other literary journals. Suzanne has served as fiction editor of Kestrel, the art and literary journal at Fairmont State University, since 2008.
Literary Foremothers: Emily Dickinson and Me
So many writers have responded to the poems and person of Emily Dickinson that it seems extravagant, even self-indulgent, to add another word. Adrienne Rich, in her eloquent essay, “Vesuvius at Home: […]
Replacement Silverware and the Chuck Norris Effect
I acquired my all-time favorite silverware inadvertently. I was looking for Christmas gifts in T.J. Maxx and perusing the home wares aisles. This was back in 1995, and I was shopping for […]
How to Have a Merry Family Christmas
Getting together with family for the holidays is something many of us look forward to with mixed emotions. There’s the excitement of knowing you’ll see loved ones, and the reality of ongoing […]
Giving Thanks for the Modern Medical Miracle of DBS
One thing people might not know about Parkinson’s is how difficult it is to diagnose. The early symptoms of Parkinson’s—shakiness, muscle stiffness, impaired balance, and depression—are common to myriad illnesses and begin […]
A Skeptic’s Ghost Story
I’d like to say I don’t believe in ghosts, the spirits that haunt the human world after the body has ceased to contain them. Ghosts have stories; they haunt a place, […]
Texas, Oh Texas
–After “The Beautiful” by Michelle Tea Belly up, back down on scratch grass growing in cracked black soil, my childhood fingers slipped inside the cracked handles of the earth. High winds pushed […]
What Our Dreams Can Mean
One of the most satisfying dreams I ever had was incredibly violent. I was a teenager in my dream, leading my friends through a maze-like neighborhood, while a group of bullies followed […]
The Best Girl Scout Leader in the World
Girl Scout Motto: Be Prepared The Girl Scouts is an early twentieth-century organization founded by women, for women. Being a Girl Scout from 1969 until 1974, from second grade through sixth grade, […]
Crime of the Month: Predatory Landlords
The Crime of the Month is greed, the kind of greed perpetrated by Westwind Enterprises, a private-equity firm. Located in San Jose, California, Westwind Enterprises is a predatory private-equity firm that buys […]
The Gloria Sirens 