awards / Coronavirus / COVID-19 / creativity / current events / essays / family / memoir / poetry / religion / school / spirituality
Our Best of the Net nominations, 2020.
We give thanks for good work in a difficult time. Image: Jefferson Davis statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Photograph by Gregory Weatherford. We at Broad Street are proud of everything we publish, and we wish we could nominate all of it for every award out there. Alas, we can choose only a handful....
“I Don’t Want to Go Back,” by Zibby Owens.
A New Yorker contemplates back-to-school season from the countryside–a mother’s call to arms. “I want to do the right thing. I just don’t know exactly what that is right now.” * I don’t want to go back. As a lifelong New Yorker, I hate to admit that. But it’s true. I’m worried. Worried about what will happen...
“Retail Therapy … Just Isn’t Anymore,” by Eleanor Herman.
Returning to the mall in the age of Covid-19. “I mean, even if nobody sees me, I do have certain standards.” Back to the Tysons mall after four months away! I’ve always loved to look at clothing, shoes, and purses. To try skincare and makeup. I used to slip out of my home office and...
“Everything’s Fine,” an essay by Bea Chang.
31 paragraphs about quarantine and sports. “I figured that by the time I was ‘done,’ some semblance of normalcy would have resumed.” 1. Most of my friends were (are) athletes. After our college careers, they started to do long-distance running, signing up for 10K races and marathons. I did not. I coached basketball; I tended to...
“Waiting,” from the COVID journals of Patricia Smith.
On waiting — and moving forward — in a pandemic. “Experience tells me the world is not always a safe place, and yet — “ I know there should be a holiness in waiting. In learning to be still, to learn the lesson that we are not in control. This is, after all, what advent is all about. We wait and...
