Essay Published: An Indispensable Conversation

Fathom Magazine has recently published an issue centered around friendship. They asked me to contribute to this issue, which also happens to be their 5th Anniversary. Over the last five years, they have published several of my poems, essays, an interview, and even a fictional story. This essay on friendship is entitled An Indispensable Conversation after how Wendell Berry described his friendship with James Baker Hall. I’ve posted the opening paragraph below. If you’re interested, then click through in the link.

My first friend in kindergarten was a girl named Jenny. Her dad emigrated from England to America, so she spoke with a half-British accent. After my mom had coaxed me, crying, out of the car, Mrs. Townsend placed me across from Jenny at a tiny table using a seating chart divined by some alphabetical, last name lottery. That alphabet was an unintelligible matrix for me at the time, so my and Jenny’s little friendship formed out of a mysterious proximity as we traced cryptic symbols. “Hello,” she said, strangely. I still had tears on my cheeks. 

https://www.fathommag.com/stories/an-indispensable-conversation

Also, in this issue are an essay on friendships ending by John Graeber and a poem by Tommy Welty that I enjoyed.

Thanks for reading, as always.