Sandra McDonald | Rules for Ordinary Heroes

curses take root from root to root / is what they said / when they came for the tree /the tree that had shaded her since she was a baby | © 2024 by Adriana C. Grigore. Narrated by Roxanne Hernandez. L...

28 Helmi 20246min

Her fingers, then, had folded around the clay, her mind entranced. Her fingers traced the soft wetness, pressed gently, pressed firmly, bent, rolled, pulled, pushed. The clay yielded to her rough-skin...

21 Helmi 202435min

I wouldn't survive a slasher film. When the killer comes to town and starts popping off fresh-faced coeds, I’d eat it before we hit Act II. I have a great affection for those initial victims who seem ...

14 Helmi 20249min

As Annie slips into the club, she grins at Robert, all trepidation and excitement. She hardly disturbs the velvet curtains with her passing, so their weight surprises him. He pushes at the fabric to f...

7 Helmi 202448min

I was inspired by my body, and bodies in general. What it means for a body to exist in spaces that find it unworthy, unholy. And how sometimes, we also have to carry our ancestry, our birthplace, in t...

31 Tammi 20245min

I work in a tall brick room with peaked cathedral ceilings. At one end of the room there is a brick-lined chute, chimneylike, that opens up out of the ceiling seventy-five or a hundred feet above a ya...

17 Tammi 202426min

My little brother once chased me through the house with an ax. He was joking, mostly. But it certainly didn’t feel like a joke at the time. He plunged forward with a guttural battle cry at the start o...

11 Tammi 20248min

Pregnancy is an infestation. A hidden invasion. An invisible operative sneaks inside you, planting a package of foreign genetic material and forcing you to replicate it trillions of times. Soon, your ...

3 Tammi 202453min