Megan Stielstra

From an important new American writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice. In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and universal as she grapples toward a better way to live. In her titular piece “The Wrong Way To Save Your Life,” she answers the question of what has value in our lives—a question no longer rhetorical when the apartment above her family’s goes up in flames. “Here is My Heart” sheds light on Megan’s close relationship with her father, whose continued insistence on climbing mountains despite a series of heart attacks leads the author to dissect deer hearts in a poetic attempt to interrogate her own feelings about mortality. Whether she's imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses, recounting the story of going underwater on the mortgage of her first home, or revealing the unexpected pains and joys of marriage and motherhood, Stielstra's work informs, impels, enlightens, and embraces us all. The result is something beautiful—this story, her courage, and, potentially, our own. Intellectually fierce and viscerally intimate, Megan Stielstra's voice is witty, wise, warm, and above all, achingly human. “Stielstra is a masterful essayist.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger

Essays

The Wrong Way to Save Your Life

Insightful, compassionate, gutsy, and heartbreaking personal essays exploring the messy, maddening beauty of adulthood with wit, intelligence, and biting humor.

Personal Essays

Once I Was Cool

Andrew Reilly

This anthology of short, personal essays brings a vibrant oral tradition to the page through the work of 2nd Story, a Chicago-based collective working to build community through storytelling. These original, unpublished essays are adapted from the group’s monthly events, which fuse page, stage, and sound to deliver a unique, live literary and theatrical experience. Contributors include Sam Weller, Patricia Ann McNair, Eric Charles May, and Randall Albers.

Stories from 2nd Story

Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck

Leopoldine Core

Brian Davis

Naben Ruthnum

Andrew Sullivan

Katya Apekina

Peter Orner

Tobias Carroll

Kate Durbin

Amanda Ackerman

Daniel Mueller

Spencer Gordon

Tamar Halpern

Shawn Syms

Joyland is an online and print literary magazine that selects fiction regionally. Praised for its unique approach by Time Out, the Atlantic, and the CBC, Joyland now brings its best stories into print with Retro Vol. 1. Issue 2. From writers both emerging and acclaimed come short stories about an indie Abraham Lincoln film that's heading towards disaster, a Miley Cyrus fan defending his unending obsession, and what happens when a woman tries to break up with the Incredible Hulk after a life long affair. As Quill & Quire wrote, "The future of literary magazines is already here."

Selections from Joyland Magazine

Retro Vol. 1 No. 2

Megan Stielstra

Books

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