LaMichael Shawn Carter was gunned down in Asheville on April 12, 2022 So here is my story of knowing Shawn Jason and I moved to Asheville in 2005. We bought a house on Fairfax Ave. I had gotten a job as an assistant professor of English at Western Carolina University…

So some years ago, I was floating down the Green River in rural western North Carolina with some friends. We’d gotten tubes from these guys who were undoubtedly coked to the gills, renting tubes for $5 per float out of their trailer on the side of the road. The deal…

Welcome to Gilead. I’m Jane, and it’s May Day. Episode 1: Hide your trail and cover your ass So I just bought ten doses of Plan B (or rather this cheaper generic version). I’m actually menopausal, and my spouse got a vasectomy ages ago, so these are for people in…

Uncast Notes from January 2016

2. Notes from January 2016 Day one of self-care: go to your psychiatrist. Actually, she’s not a psychiatrist, but she is the person who prescribes my anti-depressants and tries to make me go talk to a therapist. She will say, “I’m worried about you.” I will say, “me, too.” …

I was born in 1792. I want to swim. I want to run. I have been cast out by my parents who are tired of my pretending to be a boy, because I want to be a boy, to set paper boats afloat with my body aboard, to burn the…

Yesterday, I heard the most recent episode of The Takeaway (an NPR podcast), which is all about childbirth. If you’d like to hear it, it’s here. You should listen. How are you, by the way, with what’s happening to women’s access to abortion? I ask because you are pro-choice, right? …

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” — Offred, The Handmaid’s Tale This post is WAY too long to be on Medium, but I had to write it. Brace for impact. Generally speaking, I’m not an alarmist, but I…

Issue 1 Laura Wright is the Graduate Program Director of English at WCU. The works herein were written, peer-reviewed, and copy-edited by students in the program. They appear under Dr. Wright’s name, because she did the final editing to put them on Medium. They are entirely the work of the…