Let this not be the last time I am published in a literary journal whose name is difficult to pronounce.
DUCTS bills itself as “a webzine of personal stories.” I submitted what is probably one of the most depressing things I’ve ever written (and that is saying a lot) — just in time for the holidays! Sorry about that. The publication timing was entirely unintentional.
Anyway. Here I am in the Memoirs section, with a piece I (originally) called Losing.*
(Be sure to check out the other pieces of memoir by my fellow NYC storytellers Slash Coleman and Jennifer Glick. Thanks to DUCTS’ Memoirs section editor Lisa Kirchner for soliciting this and for her excellent editorial suggestions.)
*In a later draft I renamed the piece to “Blood” but it didn’t get updated. Or maybe the editor didn’t like it. But part of the work I’m doing to reform the part of myself that is a total control freak is to learn to just let things like this go. So it’s entitled “Losing” and that’s okay.
Also, the accompanying illustration is by Yuliya Kashapova.