topic: LOVE AND HEARTBREAK medium: SONG, VIDEO as shared at a PenTales event themed “Love and Heartbreak”

topic: BORDERS medium: TEXT, VIDEO as shared at a PenTales event themed “Love and Heartbreak”

topic: TRAVEL medium: TEXT Flying somewhere over Greenland My Dearest Sons, I left this morning with a heavy heart. Usually your mother drives me to the airport with you in tow, you jump out once we’ve parked and hug me with an intensity lasting my whole trip. This morning it […]

        topic: CHANGE medium: TEXT I took an oath. My hand on the book and I said I would not go. Swore to her I would not. Trust me, I said. I am an honest man and though my pockets are empty, I am my father’s son […]

topic: CHANGE medium: TEXT I see my papa’s eyes weighted with two round stones, smoothed by river water. My mother’s tears drip upon my neck. I reach across a crude, rough-hewn wooden box, a kind of boat to me, lined with my mother’s shawl. With me, I see my mother, […]

topic: BORDERS medium: PHOTOGRAPHY

topic: TRAVEL medium: TEXT We huddled together, a bunch of American tourists in an alleyway in Beijing. A small crowd of people surrounded us. They inhabited this traditional neighborhood, known as a hutong. Not many hutong are left. They have, for the most part, been razed by the government and […]

topic: LOVE & HEARTBREAK medium: TEXT Remembering the warmth and protection of my mother’s womb, I cried. I was in a strange new land, experiencing things that I had never felt before. I cringed at the noise that surrounded me; strange hands carried me away from my comfort zone. It […]