The sand squelches between my squirmy toes, as I clutch my red bucket of curious creatures— captured by my bubbling interest.
I venture closer to the ocean’s edge, a shell suddenly slicing into my foot. My blood mingles with sand and gravel, like strawberry syrup and graham cracker crumbles.
The sea eagerly laps at my wounded skin, salt sizzling against the rawness within. My bucket topples, releasing its captives, and I watch them scurry back to their homes.
I received a warning, a debt to settle for my youthful curiosity. A price in lifeblood, transaction now complete.
Well, she had acquired an Irish name—Miss Horan. A lovely lilt leavened her language. And her eyes were the startling grey-blue sometimes seen in that race.
Trouble was, she putting it all on. Miss Horan was actually Romanian, or some such. Old Doc, who was relating the story to me whilst barbering my hair, was not certain from whence the woman actually came. Since we both knew the truth of it, it went unsaid that on our island, people hail from everywhere and mix like mad. So it’s simple enough to up sticks and move yourself to a new spot where you can pretend to be someone else if you feel the need of it. For a time, then, it suited the woman who called herself Miss Horan to be Irish.…
Anna Rollins’s debut memoir, Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl, will be published by Eerdmans on December 9th, 2025. Rollins blends memoir, reporting, and research to examine how diet culture and biblical purity culture instruct women to fear their bodies and deny their appetites. She is also the author of numerous essays and craft pieces including: Between the Sunflower Stalks in The New York Times; Running an Olsen Twins Fanpage Taught Me to Craft an Online Identity in Electric Literature;and many others in outlets (such as Slate, Salon, NBC News THINK, and Joyland).
Raised as a lifelong Appalachian in a Baptist community, she lives in West Virginia with her husband and children.…
“It says here that when Leonardo Da Vinci died, he asked forgiveness for not using his art to the fullest of his abilities. That somehow, he had failed God and mankind.” A lanky man with a thick red scarf around his neck folded his newspaper, stuffed it into his jacket pocket, and turned to his companion not expecting an answer. The two men had stopped to take a break from their afternoon walk, sitting down on a bench overlooking a stretch of beach that surrendered to waves, the bay, then out to the ocean.
“Guilt.”
“Excuse me?”
“He was Catholic, wasn’t he?”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“The old boys back then probably made him feel guilty because he couldn’t turn clay into gold.…
I sit at the dining table, and the warm spring sun falls on an empty sheet of paper. I draw almost every day now. And no matter what I start to draw, I see myself in the end.
The day before yesterday, I was a tennis ball. A green one, with light lines wrapping around my body. Such balls are usually picked up by men in snow-white shorts. Those with strong hands and stressful jobs. They grab the ball, lift the racket, and swing it against the wall. Just to have fun and relax. “Stupid ball!” they shout if it does not fly straight back into their hands afterward. And then they hit it against the wall even harder.
