Author: jolina

Dipping beneath the cedar tree a spider web -- as usual -- casts a silky netting over my face. I peel it off and pick my way up the cinder blocks to Miss Oberah’s sagging green porch. Beetles the color

My brother, Josiah Caleb Miller, was birthed on August 3, 1997: the same day our nocturnal rooster, Mardi Gras, suffocated in my father’s beat-up Dodge Ram. Someone Father had built a barn for gave him a beautiful white rooster with a

This past Friday I was sitting on the couch, wanting to break out and tap around the living room when those in Singin' in the Rain did, not even contemplating anything other than turning my mind into mush for two

Today, in the darkness of early morning, we sent Time spiraling forward. At no other point in the year do we ever so purposefully embrace its passage, and at no other point in our lives do we ever take such

Right now, if college degrees were cashed in, everyone would be walking around with heads full of knowledge and handfuls of change. No longer are students being given freshly-minted dreams along with their freshly-minted diplomas. Instead, they find themselves applying

This past month I learned two things: It’s not easy writing a novel without an outline, and it’s not easy driving a car without a speedometer. (Or, for that matter, with one. My first speeding ticket, at 16, involved a Cops-worthy

Even when I was little I was fascinated by graveyards. Not the new ones, mind you, with their tinkling wind chimes and fake flowers scattered over the grounds like Mardi Gras confetti. I loved the ancients that were old and

With a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes, my husband said, "Come here--I have to show you something." Always susceptible to intrigue, I followed him into our bedroom. The lights were dimmed, and I could see an odd flickering coming

"Some stories are true that never happened." ~Elie Weisel My memories are being eroded; they are being washed away bits and layers at a time. And once I walk through the valley of my mind, stooping to sift through the remains,

 When I was six years old, my family moved from a two story, cedar-sided home with an intercom system and attached garage into a 500 square foot slave quarters set on a 365 acre, Civil War-era farm. The arrangement was