Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Claire Bateman

Poetry

Autumn 1992

Character

By Claire Bateman

The alchemists sweated to change lead to gold. My sister turned diamond into glass. With her friends she followed step for step their schoolmate of the charm bracelet, tiny silver […]

Poetry

Autumn 1992

Milk

By Claire Bateman

For years, he assumed they were always full, milk everywhere, invisible under dresses; impossibly close as he swayed for balance in buses; heating up at the beach inside Spandex bikinis; […]

Poetry

Autumn 1989

If Worst Came to Worst

By Claire Bateman

In the neighborhood it was always six p.m. The fathers were always coming home hatted, briefcased, stepping out of their cars like astronauts back from unimaginable orbits, hailing each other […]