Showing results by narrator "Iva-Marie Palmer" in All Categories

Alexander Chee, a “master artist” (Maris Kreizman, host of The Maris Review) of the personal essay, selects 20 essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Beep! Beep! Have you heard the news? There is someone new on the farm! All the animals are curious and cautious about the newcomer—what will he be like? Does he neigh like a horse or oink like a pig? Does he have fur or feathers? Does he swim? Does he fly? Luckily, Blue knows just the thing to help his friends, old and new, feel at home! 

Ocean Sun has always felt enormous pressure to succeed. After struggling with depression during her senior year in high school, Ocean moves to New York City, where she has been accepted at a prestigious university. But Ocean feels so emotionally raw and unmoored (and uncertain about what is real and what is not), that she decides to defer and live off her savings until she can get herself together. She also decides not to tell her mother (whom she loves very much but doesn’t want to disappoint) that she is deferring—at least until she absolutely must.