“There were hundreds crawling across the trail.” Huge, hairy animals surround hiker in Texas desert
Tamara headed to a Texan national park with the hope of spotting a black bear – but stumbled across something more ominous
My Husband Told Me He Couldn’t Be Married Anymore — So I Made A Decision I’ve Kept Secret For 12 Years
This piece was originally published in June 2024 and is being rerun now as part of HuffPost Personal’s “Best Of” series. In 2010, after a 17-year marriage, my husband asked for a divorce, saying he couldn’t be married anymore. We had two sons, 14 and 16, not quite two years apart, whom I had nursed […]
Book Review of a Well-trained wife: My escape from christian patriarchy
Tia Levings’s powerful memoir, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy, delivers a searing critique of patriarchal religious systems through the lens of her own harrowing journey. As a Gen X survivor of religious fundamentalism, Levings provides a revealing window into the oppressive structures of Christian patriarchy, offering both personal testimony and broader cultural commentary. […]
Tamara MC’s “The Night Sinéad O’Connor Found Me in a Convertible”
This summer, I am running a series of essays about Sinéad O’Connor to celebrate the publication of our book: Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O’Connor Means to Us. Our Westport Public Library event on Aug. 6 was incredible, including a panel with contributors Nalini Jones and Sharbari Ahmed as well as Beth Boquet singing “Last […]
Poetry: Fish by Tamara MC
Our toilet grew shadows that morning, breathing ammonia. The steward fed it bleach until it learned to swallow properly. At 2:30 a.m. the sea counts minutes. He splits from our bed like cell division, returns with salt in his pores. We share a queen size ocean, legs evolving into separate species until I graft mine […]
Barbie’s Blue Leather Case
Twenty hours stretch between Tucson and Mazatlán, Mexico on a highway that never ends. Hour one, 6 AM: inside the 1969 baby blue VW van, metal heats and expands as the dawn breaks pink over the Catalina Mountains. Saguaros cast long shadows across Interstate 19. My mother spends hours preparing the back for our journey—layering serapes, […]
A Perfect Palm Springs Weekend
Palms, Parties, and Pink Cotton Candy Palm Springs sparkles with mid-century glamour, healing hot springs, and endless sunshine. Named for the natural hot springs of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, this desert oasis sits at the base of Mount San Jacinto, creating a unique microclimate that attracted Hollywood stars beginning in the 1920s. […]
HER/HIS story, dawn, and Joy
HER/HIS story MC sits on a hard chair shaking her head. It is pre-summer 2013 and MC’s big breasts fall out of MC’s flowered razorback bra. MC’s black thong swings up from MC’s black yoga pants. It is 11:06 am and horns are honking on the avenue. Later, when MC will be eating cornbread casserole […]
Miami Vice, 1993
His Murphy bed dropped from the wall in that Arizona studio apartment. While he watched Miami Vice.Ed wash the teacups, wipe counters. clear away his MIS textbooks. Bright PM sharp:catching glimpses of Don Johnson’s world between dishes and dusting. Espadrilles with no socks. silk t-shirts.Bangladesh to AZfiltered through pink and palm trees on his twelve-inch […]
Solitary Car
I am the only one alone on this train, watching families cluster, friends laugh. Mile Post Seventy-Two slides past the window, avalanche protection standing guard. Morning haze from last night’s forest fire scents the air like distant campfires. I missed the bus downtown yesterday— another small journey undertaken alone. It seems like old times: everyone […]