Browse Topics
Pregnancy and Childbirth
Distractions
Reading at work, listening to music during labor, swatting gnats while meditating
July 2026
The Good End of Pleasant Street
When our landlords came by to introduce themselves, they stood beside a shelf of our books on how to avoid suffering: “Develop a mind that clings to nothing,” said the Buddhist Diamond Sutra; Be Here Now, read the spine of a Ram Dass book. Dan was a general contractor and wore a flat cap and a half grin. Or a sneer. I wasn’t sure which.
June 2026
Milk
Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote
June 2026
Love in All Directions
Sometimes you had to conjure your own joy. Scratch that. Most of the time you had to conjure your own joy. So you had better suck it up and start chopping onions.
January 2026
House Hunting
Our sordid credit history seems to sadden more than shock her. Such nice people, she must be thinking. How do these things happen?
December 2025
The Childless Aunt
Though a faint hope that I might yet conceive continued to smolder in the back of my mind, at some point it dawned on me that none of these joys and trials I wished for myself were exclusive to biological parents. I could love any child who needed me.
November 2025
Selected Poems
I know now, / having woken / and climbed away from you / in the chill / that I can do it. / Cast a spell / on my body.
November 2025
Inside the Whale
Adapted from Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story
Excerpted from Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story by Erica Stern. Available via Barrel House. Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved.
Tart
After the massage I take myself to lunch. I eat a passion fruit tart. It’s delicious—sour and sweet both in perfect balance. Its perfection makes me angry. The filling is bright yellow. I watch my fork pick up the yellow and the crumbs. I am too focused on this tart. I wonder if I have been worrying so much that the worry muscles in my brain are now broken, permanently sharpened to a point of attention that is useless now, an ambulance siren for no one.
March 2025
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