When I read submissions for Willow Springs, certain words and phrases kill off my interest in the narrative entirely, dismissing the prose as sentimental drivel: cancer, realize, hospital, grandmother, English major, “I felt”, shimmering, and so on (okay, English major doesn’t denote sentimentality, necessarily, but oftentimes in a story/essay, after a grandmother dies of cancer in the hospital, the narrator realizes that she needs to major in English and write shimmering prose that makes her feel…[insert digressive cliche here]); it’s like using the phrase, “In today’s society” – people know better, but they do it anyway. I was in Hutchinson, Kansas, this past weekend among 18 immediate and extended family members – the largest family reunion I remember being a part of, thanks to nieces and nephews and once-removed cousins born in the last few years – to see my grandfather. Prior to arriving, Read more »