A nonfiction literary magazine sharing the extraordinary within ordinary lives.
Features essays by contributing writers that focus on the biographies of "ordinary people." Shares the stories of featured individuals and transports readers into many eclectic lives. bioStories works hard to find work by talented writers who often force readers to see people and the worlds they inhabit in new ways.
J Bryan McGeever explores the complicated decisions that accompany trying to make sure your child has the opportunity to lead their best life, decisions that are more complicated for a mixed race family. Read "Island Party" now at www.biostories.com
What you see isn’t always what you get. MerriLee Anderson learned a number of lessons as a child when accompanying her mother to her Tuesday night bowling league, some less obvious than others. Read "Bowling Lessons" now at www.biostories.com
Which wins out? The memories of the father who awed you with magic tricks? The father who dreamed of owning your favorite restaurant? The one who kept a rifled leaned in the corner of his bedroom? The father you pick up at the homeless shelter when you take him to lunch? What happens when you cannot make disparate memories come together? Read "Memories without a Home" by Nicole Alexander now at www.biostories.com
“Do fallible, reconstructions of memory blind us to behaviors we might otherwise disapprove in ourselves? Does the repeated sharing of emotion-packed stories to which we pay homage for shaping our adopted worldview blind us from expanding or adjusting that worldview?” Read "My Forgettery" by Paul Graseck now at www.biostories.com
Can you be rooted while rootless, content while restless, cursed while blessed? Raised for many of her early years in a converted school bus, Sky Karam de Sela chronicles a rich, if sometimes perilous, early life journey. Read "Breaking the Curse" now at www.biostories.com
This week we feature an essay that recognizes important topics, when discussed by thoughtful, experienced, critical thinkers, are seldom as linear as we might wish. Read "Armed" by James McKean now at www.biostories.com
We're thrilled to share publication news for an essay collection by a writer we have featured more than once in the magazine: Anika Pavel. Encounter with the Future is an autobiographical collection of essays about politics; Eastern Europe; the Prague Spring; entertainment and the performing arts; the Iron Curtain; James Bond; Czechoslovakian books; family; fame; modeling; acting; motherhood. A complex story of immigration and success from a fabulous writer, former model and Bond girl. Learn more at: https://www.anikapavel.com/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556962052045
This week we feature a marvelous, meandering essay that reminds us how inextricably linked unlikely people, places, and events really are. Read "Meander Is a Noun" by Erin Hemme Froslie now at www.biostories.com
This week we feature an essay that explores the risks of living in a culture that is often dismissive of science and the personal experience of the consequences that can emerge. Read "Two Truths and a Lie" by Sharman Ober-Reynolds now at www.biostories.com
Two new books to celebrate from Sydney Lea, a writer we have been lucky enough to publish several times. A new poetry collection titled WHAT SHINES https://fourwaybooks.com/site/what-shines/
and a new essay collection titled SUCH DANCING AS WE CAN https://www.the-humble-essayist-press.com/ The former Poet Laureate of Vermont and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Sydney's work is as fresh and powerful as ever.
This week we feature an essay that depicts a circumstance that probably hits close to home for many–a reflection on being a witness to racism and not standing up sufficiently as an ally to those being victimized. Read "Wichita 2:28 a.m." by Mark Lewandowski now at www.biostories.com
Sadly, this week we remember a beloved member of the bioStories writer family, Karen Foster, who passed away on March 27th. Her piece from 2021’s Volume 11, Issue 1remains a personal favorite for its honesty and originality and also for the editing process it underwent. It is not often, given the volume of submissions we receive, that we are able to work collaboratively through several drafts with a writer, but once in a while we receive a piece that although in need of work to ready it for publication, showcases something so striking in its ideas or ex*****on that we want it to achieve its full potential and reach an audience. Such was the nature of “Carrying Sam”. After its publication I embarked on a long, vibrant, fulfilling editorial relationship with Karen focused on a number of companion pieces to “Carrying Sam”. She was an extraordinarily disciplined and original writer, one who led a fascinating life. I will miss her terribly. I hope that you come to feel you know her through this essay. You can read the essay at www.biostories.com
This week a daughter yearns for home. Read "A Good Cup of Chai" by Hailey Duggirala now at www.biostories.com
New poetry collection from a beloved bioStories friend: learn more about or purchase Jean Ryan's A DAY LIKE THIS. It's a beautiful collection. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1639805494/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3IE96CQ3UF2XQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kR8tscAPAsF8grX3kkFBiOisWYYBYF-2xqZeze9e07aAjGsCxsQ2cOnhfH39nokdwfFHV-7_YeuJ7xs239vv2glfxHDbO0_4CDQHgUZeFGAswSB07OBdfZpatFj-t65dx3WKkR6LCeapMCCrnQPgc9n6_-k7_5zal_6AP88sL4dvRDcmRlGL1fIgn5m3q592VtE3sw0HipSlgFEsUz1wR-240o_UKxKlS4t0pyQufAg.YiPtWGS9FkfMCaaUDKGZHcK8npr9bDB4qW4e8ogTV0U&dib_tag=se&keywords=a+day+like+this+by+jean+ryan&qid=1711887915&sprefix=a+day+like+this+by+jean+ryan%2Caps%2C424&sr=8-1
https://jean-ryan.com/2024/03/31/a-day-like-this/
This week a father contemplates the fabric of time for very personal reasons. Read "Time" by David Riessen now at www.biostories. com
This week Sydney Lea captures the experience when blissful days, perhaps even days bordering on the mythical, suddenly give way to the human need to find significance in them. From the essay: “I was too painfully aware that the simple, unwilled sense of grand coherence had been sacrificed to my old inclination: once again, I was laboring to forge wholes out of disparities. The habit had recurred like a sickness from which I was confident I had recovered.” Read "At the River" now at www.biostories.com
This week at bioStories: a doctor facing burn-out receives advice she cannot abide. Read "Care Less" by Sarah DeParis now at www.biostories.com
Online literary magazine bioStories has an open call for submissions for creative nonfiction. Learn more at NewPages.com.
This week...an imagined resume... Read "Max Krasner" by Barbara Krasner now at www.biostories.com
This week…cloistered in COVID isolation with a doctor’s warning of “worryingly” high cholesterol in slumping middle age…an atheist tackles 119 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago. Read "Pilgrim" by Phil Cummins now at www.biostories.com
This week…what is to stand in a remote wilderness valley as a herd of 10,000 caribou split and pass around your camp? Read "Walks with Caribou" by Michael Engelhard now at www.biostories. com
This week…one of those essays that will make you feel everything all at once and see the world anew. Read "Quantum Physics" by Beth Benedix now at www.biostories.com
This week: chance and grace, creation and destruction. Read "Sleeping Dogs" by Claire Simons now at www.biostories.com
This week at bioStories: Life lessons from the rhythm of the loom. Read "Weaving Lessons" by Lory Widmer Hess now at www.biostories.com
This week: learning to navigate bitterness among the indelible marks of childhood. "Still Running" by Mario Moussa. Read it now at www.biostories.com
This week: youth and friendship and the hard lessons of growing up. "The Days Went By" by Bryan Mammel. We will all recognize parts of ourselves and our pasts in this essay. Read it now at www.biostories.com
So thrilled to share a book conversation with the remarkable Ginger Pinholster a week from today. This is a free event open to all but you do have to register to receive a link. Come and join us without leaving your couch. Thanks to Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe for hosting us. To register: https://www.malaprops.com/event/live-stream-ginger-pinholster-and-mark-hummel
We are only weeks removed from the winter solstice, a small reminder that the days are again slowly lengthening, though one difficult for many of us to acknowledge in the weak winter light of January amid our post-holiday decompression. Many of us feel a little down, something common but altogether different from those among us who suffer from depression. This week, we feature an essay that reminds us both of the despair suffered by those with a diagnosis of depression and a lovely, lived acknowledgement that there is help, hope, and life just the same. Read "The First Mosquito" by Mary Fairchild now at www.biostories.com
As we send off our nominations for this year's Best American Essays anthology, it is an appropriate time to share the good news that David Raney's essay "Ink and Memory" published this time last year made the "notables" list in the recently released Best American Essays 2023. Congratulations, David.
This week, in the midst of the holiday season when we hope most are able to experience magic, the giving and receipt of gifts, perhaps even abundance, Christine Overall offers a reminder that all are not so fortunate. And more than that, she demonstrates the power of making, and keeping, a commitment to create change moving forward. Read "How to Feed a Child" now at www.biostories.com
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