Angela Kelsey

Tell the Story

Love Yourself So Matcha!

Filed in Stories, voices :: May 10, 2018

Maybe you’re a biological mother or an adoptive mother or a step-mother or a mother to people you work with or for. Maybe you play the role of mother to animals or a business or your parents. Regardless of the way you mother, I hope these words that I shared with my step-daughter will help […]

read more
 

What I Learned Before, During, and After Hurricane Irma

Filed in Stories, voices :: September 25, 2017

My stuff that matters a lot to me fits in a small carry-on. My stuff that matters a little less to me fits in a small car. Electricity and air conditioning are luxurious necessities. Order is calming. Waiting is hard. My sister is brave. Afternoon bourbon is helpful. Ribs can be cooked on Sterno. No […]

read more
 

One Story

Filed in Memoir, Stories :: August 28, 2017

Sarah Payne is the exhausted writing teacher in Elizabeth Strout’s novel My Name Is Lucy Barton. Strout’s narrator says, “…recording this now I think of something Sarah Payne had said at the writing class in Arizona.  ‘You will have only one story,’ she had said. ‘You’ll write your one story many ways. Don’t ever worry […]

read more
 

Reading Magic and Loss

Filed in Books, Stories, voices :: July 30, 2017

Over the past few years, I’ve read fewer books than ever before, and of those books, even less fiction. I’ve said that the internet has melted my brain, wrecked my attention span. Or maybe the problem is my 50-something vision, or my glasses, or the quality of the light by my bed. I listen to […]

read more
 

The Abuser’s Knack

Filed in Dating Violence, Domestic Violence :: July 23, 2017

Batterers and abusers have an uncanny knack for sizing up others’ vulnerabilities–one of the reasons we stay too long is that they underscore doubts that are already in our own heads. The most powerful ones, those most ready for the abuser’s exploitation, are the ones we worry about with private shame. A little insecurity about […]

read more