creative writing Archives - The Hyacinth Review

How Would You Grieve Me

Denise Tolan — Wed, 20 May 2026 15:00:00 +0000

One day, she said, looking up at me while planting parsley on her little patch of land, one day I will simply cease to exist. Imagine that. She took her shiny, sharp shovel and stabbed at the ground. Who will comfort you? she asked, shooing the fly circling her shoulder. Mom, her daughter yelled from…

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The Law Of Resonance And Condensed Milk

Lia D. Elen — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0000

A manifold of frequency, woven from every mind that has ever parsed the world’s hidden patterns, waits by a pillar of translucent sapphire. Their hands leave trails of phosphorus in the air, a phantom mimicry of the bioluminescence at Falmouth, tracing the invisible seams where thought condenses into matter. I arrive always as if crossing…

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Pear

James Moran — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

On their way to the first day of school after summer break Scott and Alex decided they would find the juiciest pear in the orchard. A trail of pears, each missing a bite, followed them through the rows of trees. They trotted out onto the field with pears piled in their shirts. At the school…

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Green Sanctuary

Simone Martel — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

When I first read Rumer Godden’s An Episode of Sparrows, it wasn’t considered a novel for children. It was just a novel. My mom was a librarian at the Oakland Public Library, and I would go with her to work on Saturdays and pluck from the shelf any book that looked interesting to me. The…

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The Word Thief

Patrick ten Brink — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

I have a confession, kept secret for years. Now that I am no longer who I was, I can share my story without fear of being seen as a monster. It may sound more like a misdemeanour than a crime, but it was, to me, a crime, an admittedly strange crime, flowing from a strange,…

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Learning To Read

Judy Bolton-Fasman — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 03:00:00 +0000

Mother and child are learning to read at the same time, each receiving what they need from story. My mother learned to be a deep reader as she wrestled with Don Quijote de la Mancha — the first book she read in her master’s program. That year, I was the deep listener — still and…

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A Library Of The Mind

Simone Martel — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 03:00:00 +0000

When I was very young, I knew about Carnegie libraries built all around the country, a steel tycoon’s gift to the nation. They were special places, the sort of mansions rich people might live in, only devoted to books. My branch, in the Temescal district of Oakland, California, had high ceilings, wood paneling, a fireplace…

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Words That Breathe

Connie Meyer — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 03:00:00 +0000

My passport to astonishing adventures, world travel, amazing people, history, and access to human knowledge began with the most exciting book I ever read: Fun with Dick and Jane. Sitting on my wooden seat in second grade, my lips moving as I sound out the letters, I suddenly recognize the words Spot, Jane, Mother. I…

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A Life Of Books

J.J. Steinfeld — Wed, 28 May 2025 03:00:00 +0000

Shaun’s books were scattered about his apartment. He began to gather them, piling one after another against a wall in even stacks. Then he began to count, at first each book individually, then by twos and threes: 587. Books shipped from city to city. Possessions he once couldn’t bear to leave behind. Books even from…

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Hibiscus

Maria Vaccaro — Wed, 14 May 2025 03:00:00 +0000

The first room was mostly supplies for leaving– a row of canvas bodysuits hanging on hooks, rubber gloves originally meant for scrubbing toilets, now darned and patched and lovingly folded in a Bustelo’s coffee tin. There were whole crates of masks, organized into piles… three layers, four layers, plastic, cloth, filtered… Juliet had the sudden…

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