True, personal stories from new voices and experienced writers resonating with the themes of the Personal Essay/Story Publishing Projects: "Bearing Up" (2018) and "Exploring" (2019).
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“Before Liberty”—again! Even through the misty lenses of history, they were not giants—neither are we. Randell Jones is an award-winning writer about the pioneer and Revolutionary War eras and North Carolina history. During 25 years, he has written 150+ history-based guest columns for the Winston-Salem Journal. His newest release is the expanded 2nd edition of the 2005 biography and travel guide, In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone (2024) and the related video, Boone’s America: Boone Trace, 1775 . ...
– “I’m Gus. Climb in; I’ll give you a ride.” The gravitational force pushed the seat straps into my shoulders and my stomach leaped. I couldn’t breathe. S. G. (Sandy) Benson lives in Warne, North Carolina, where she is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network-West. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and she received awards from the Nebraska Press Women. She published her first book in 2021, My Mother’s Keeper: One Family’s Journey Through Dementia . Her second ...
– I was unwilling to pour out good beer. I received their conversation and stories and momentary camaraderie as an exchange for the communal feast. Jeanne VanBuren, from Winston Salem, N.C., is a contributor once again to the Personal Story Publishing Project. She is working on a collection of her life adventures that come from being a widowed mom of five sons and growing up in a huge family of 12 siblings. She has been documenting life's travels and changes over 25 years, annually enjoyed in Ch...
– I found the village of plundered houses strangely peaceful. The broken remains of a swinging bridge across the Gauley, I supposed, had once been someone’s way out. "A Hollow and Forgottten Place" by Mark K. Marshall Randell Jones - voice Mark Marshall moved to Nashville in 1977 from his home state of West Virginia. He worked for 40 years as a career coach where he heard and shared stories with thousands of people from every walk of life. His writing draws on how growing up in a small lumber an...
– He wasn’t cheap; he just liked free things . He charged into snake-infested palmetto bushes with gusto, flinging balls out to the fairway like a crazed Walmart shopper on Black Friday.
– Going barefoot is fun…if you have shoes in your closet. Even in old age, Mama remembered hopelessly tugging down the faded blue dress, trying to hide her feet.
– He could not send others into dangers that he was not willing to face himself. The locals know that date. They honor it. They value it because it gave them freedoms that they live to this day. Words and their friends fill Ginny’s days. Sometimes they come in a well-organized dignified gathering so that Ginny can enquire about the spellings and meanings of the ones she hasn’t met before. Other times, however, they spill out and fly by quickly as if they flew out the window of a speeding car. Gi...
– “If you turn around now, I’ll get you home.” A 1955 Chevy Nomad station wagon, her faded, chalky green body panels and acid-etched roof and hood left no doubt as to her ancestry.
– There are all kinds of marriages. Freedom is not cheap. And it is never “pure.” Emily Rosen lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where for over 20 years and until her 95th birthday, she instructed classes in memoir writing, publishing two anthologies of stories from her classes, and the book, Who Am I? (Emily celebrates her 99th birthday in April 2026.) For two decades and until the local weekly newspaper folded in 2021, she wrote the column “Everything's Coming Up Rosen.” Her travel and feature ...
– The cows? The cows were a problem? I walked each check to the bursar's office, fully aware that the cost of my education was far greater than the value of the check. Phoenicia Miracle is originally from Harlan County, Kentucky, one of Appalachia's most recognizable communities. Through non-fiction short stories, Phoenicia features the region's people and place in authentic, narrowly focused plots. "Free from the Feds" centers on her Dad and his independent, self-reliant spirit. This piece bene...
– I am certain we had more fun. There was nothing like the feel of the wind slapping hair in our faces as we leaned out the window and yelled fervent taunts at the opposing cars. Vicki Easterly is a retired disability advocate living in Frankfort, Kentucky. Several of her stories have appeared in prior PSPP anthologies. Her book, Miracles in the Mundane , was selected for the annual Kentucky Book Festival. She was a finalist in the Poetry Unites Kentucky competition. Her nonfiction memoir was a ...
– Not so fast, my slowly dying friend ! Out there my heart easily held you with the thrum of ancestral music, song, and dance, as consistent as air. A native fish-taco-loving San Diegan, Jo McElroy Senecal spent decades on the East Coast, blending professional stage and clown credits with various roles at magical powerhouses like The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp and The Big Apple Circus Clown Care (now Healthy Humor). Her NYTimes article hints at her passion for pediatric palliative care, which Jo...
On Shrove Tuesday, Sister Cook introduces a "Saint Surprise" pancake game where hidden objects predict vocations, causing the young protagonist to silently question its "fortune telling" nature. When a student chokes on a hidden medal, Mrs. Elvira Friend intervenes, stopping the dangerous game and replacing it with a recipe for "Happiness Cake." The episode highlights how the narrator learns the freedom and salvation found in speaking up against perceived wrongs.
– I have always told myself I’m not a runner. Race day in November dawned bright and crisp. After a career spent finding the voices of senior business executives, Alison Rice Bruster is writing a new chapter. She holds a BA in English Literature from Queens University of Charlotte. Her work has been published in three previous Personal Story Publishing Project collections, and she won recognition in the Charlotte Writers Club Nonfiction Contest. She is a member of Charlotte Lit, the Charlotte Wr...
Diana Neunkirchner is a retired teacher living in Rougemont, North Carolina. An avid reader and writer, she is a member of the Durham Writers Group, the Writers’ Inspirational Network, and the Writers’ Critique Group. When she’s not writing short stories, personal essays, or memoir, she is hiking along the Eno River or playing the flute at Your Saving Grace, the family farm.
Not all the lessons learned in school came from our teachers. This is a story of “unarmed power. “ As a music professor and academic administrator, Joel Stegall authored more than 35 journal articles, book chapters, and other such long-forgotten documents. Since retiring to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he has completed a family history dating from the early Colonial Era. Delighted to discover in his bloodline ingenuity, inventiveness, devotion to duty, self-sacrifice and uncommon love, he was ...
Award-winning writer Steve Cushman reflects on an early experience in parenting his autistic son. Steve Cushman earned an MFA from UNC-Greensboro and has published three novels, including the Novello-Award winning Portisville . Steve’s first collection of poems, How Birds Fly , is the winner of the 2018 Lena Shull prize . Steve lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his family and can be found online at www.stevecushman.net ....
– longing for family Separated as children, a relentless desire to find one another spawned a frustrating search. Patricia E. Watts lives in Mountville, South Carolina where the love of local and family history has given her a passion to write stories to pass down to her children. She has found through stories of tragedies, tears, and triumphs and even mysteries that she has a rich heritage worth telling. Her story “A Real Small Town” appeared in the 2020 Personal Story Publishing Project, That ...
your wingman with angels An engineering prodigy arrives in the South, fascinated with an ancient relic and searching for the aerodynamic laws of angel wings, all the while nurturing his grove of Carolina dogwoods. It’s a good life. Mary Alice Dixon lives and writes in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a former attorney who often served as court-appointed counsel in juvenile court. She has also been a professor of architectural history, teaching in Charlotte, Minneapolis, and China. She belongs t...
—a brush with my bugaboo. A brother’s seeming “betrayal” awakens a loyal kid sister as his fiercest champion and ally. Janice Luckey, who lives in Davidson, North Carolina, is a member of the Write On! writing group sponsored by her local library as well as the online writing group Impromptu. Writing became a rhythm of her life when she scribbled a romance novel in a 3-ring binder in junior high school. This sparked a life-long love of all things writerly—writing, reading, journaling and hoardin...
— You durn fool Waves of hot lava washed down my throat, past my lungs, and hit my stomach like an acid avalanche. By day, Nick Sipe works as a mild-mannered IT manager for a Fortune 150 company. By night, he mostly recovers from the workday, but occasionally finds time to write. He enjoys writing Twilight Zone-style short stories, mostly horror and light sci-fi. Nick is currently shopping his debut novel, “Midnight Springs,” to literary agents. “Midnight Springs” is the first in a planned horro...
Each of us would have a dress made specially. My ears perked up . I imagined, over and over, the blue of my dress, deep and velvety, the color of evening, just as the stars begin to come out. For fifty years, Becky Gibson has written mostly poetry, publishing it in journals, anthologies, three chapbooks, and five full-length collections. She turned to creative nonfiction only recently, seeking to expand narrative beyond the constraints of a poem. Her essays appear in Snowy Egret , Canary , Cold ...
Fascinated with every big and little thing, Jamie Cheshire has long been an avid student of design and structure. Having worked together with giants, he has had the extreme good fortune to practice his craft for most of the last four decades and has seen his work appear nationally and in several countries on three continents. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his beloved feral, hippie-chick wife, their three dogs and two cats. Deeply committed to the ordinary, he is constantly sear...
a foretaste of glory divine yet to come - Artist, writer, and athlete Bill Gramley of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, recounts his discoveries of Southern cooking and describes the delectables offered up from the table set by his mother-in-law on a 1950s North Carolina farm. Bill Gramley is a retired Moravian minister. In recent years he has written several Devotional Expressions and Prayers booklets through Centenary United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem. He writes in the Senior Games Literar...
– “Sweetheart, wake up! Santa’s here!” “But what I really want, Santa, is a flashlight.” Annette L. Brown is a personal essayist and creative nonfiction writer who has pieces reflecting her love of nature, family, beauty, and humor in several publications including Flash Fiction Magazine, Every Day Fiction, Bad Day Book (Parenting), and several volumes of the Personal Story Publishing Project (Randell Jones). Annette is grateful for the support and friendship of her writing group, the Taste Life...
“Do you like the gift ya got, girlfriend?” Wanting to get rid of the proof, I tried to give the chocolates to my family for dessert. Kym B. Whitecar lives in Indian Trail, North Carolina, where she is a member of the Charlotte Writers Club and Charlotte Lit. When she retired from education, she finally had the time to take a creative writing course, reigniting her passion for storytelling. Currently, she is harassing her friends, family, and critic group with more narrative nonfiction....
I should have developed emotional armor, but I’d gone the other way. Stunned, I leaned hard on the doorjamb, knuckles white on suitcase handle, nerves frozen as they did when gut feelings proved true. Eloise Currie lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has kept a journal for 30 years and uses it as source material for short stories and nonfiction. Since retiring, she has been a member of a number of writers groups. She has tutored high school and adult students in Language Arts. She has edited t...
We all know our mothers have magical powers In Mom’s day, if you were not bleeding and could walk, you were perfectly fine. Award-winning author Bob Amason is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant colonel who was a college professor for 25 years. A Florida Writers Association member, Bob writes historical and modern suspense novels under his pen name, Frank A. Mason. His Journeyman Chronicles series on the American Revolutionary War won the 2023 Florida Writers Association Gold Royal Palm Literary A...
