The latest offerings in NiftyLit essays, memoir, and creative nonfiction.

Tyler Baron

Thirty seconds ago, my brain felt like a flambé skillet – the flames enjoying a steady diet of anger and anger about anger and why I feel anger and anger about anger and and and…

Mike Wilson

All that remains of me is an oval from my eyebrows to the middle of my chin. My hands strain to escape a cave of heavy sleeves. Sweat runs down my face.

Garth Upshaw

The cracks and weeds on the outdoor basketball court knocked the ball out of bounds as I dribbled. Steve called time and rested with his elbows on his knees, huffing in great gasps. The rest of the team immediately lit cigarettes and blew streams of smoke into the air.

Tracy Morin

Wings, drumsticks, thighs. You could get parts in a grocery store package, polished clean – the easy version. Whole birds were something else.

Angela Townsend

The court was in session all year. I accepted every verdict. I was wordy and wiry and weird, all books and daisies.

Violet Piper

The second secret is that cereal wasn’t my choice, but it takes up so much space I know it will eventually push everything else out.

Elaina Erola

"One end of the drive was full of the places and people that built me. The other is full of the beginnings, challenges, and ignitions that kept me going. I needed each to sustain the other. I went home, I went home, I went home." 

Tremain Xenos

"I think of how they begin life straight and hale, over decades or centuries to weaken against the mosses that eat their bark and the beetles that bore through them until, toppled by a storm or gravity, they lie decomposing at the feet of their kin now enjoying a clearer view of the sky."