Hippocampus Magazine and Books

07/07/2025

Explore the Archives! Since 2011, Hippocampus Magazine has published more than 140 issues full of essays, articles, and more. Like a good rerun, there's lots to enjoy again or enjoy for the first time. Browse all back issues here at the link in the comments.

An Issue-by-Issue Directory & Archive of Hippocampus Magazine Content This Hippocampus archive page has been a work in progress; we decided to make it go live in its raw form so that folks could still navigate to past issues and see a list of all stories and contributors. Previously, you had to navi...

07/07/2025

"I want the shorts, the sweatshirts, the hairbands, the half empty packets of gum, the index cards with illegible scribbles [...]"

-- from "Greed" by Tori Walters, Finalist, 2025 Contest for Flash Creative Nonfiction, published in our May-June '25 edition. Link to the essay in comments.

06/07/2025

"Held Together maps the many experiences of mothering through Thompson's own story, interwoven with the narratives of other mothers. The essays describe the many fears, doubts, and challenges women face on their journey to motherhood, whether trying to conceive, enduring miscarriages, confronting their own health issues, exploring alternative paths to parenthood, or raising young children."

– from Emily Webber's review of Held Together by Rebecca N. Thompson. Link to review in comments.

05/07/2025

"That earthy smell, cotton starched stiff by the sun. A sheet on the line.

I chase my brother from the front yard to the back and then along the side, where the clothesline stretches, sheets and shirts and things all in a row."

-- from "Ghouls by Hillary Wentworth, Finalist, 2025 Contest for Flash Creative Nonfiction, published in our May-June '25 issue. Link to the essay in comments.

05/07/2025

"Perhaps I was foolish to review this beautiful collection—my father died when I was fourteen, and the weight of what he and I can't talk about is ever-present in my psyche—but the strength of these varied essays lies in the depictions of the many different ways we relate to our fathers."

– from Brian Watson's review of the anthology What My Father and I Don't Talk About: Sixteen Writers Break the Silence, edited by Michele Filgate. Link to full review in the comments.

04/07/2025

"That said, when something is truly bothering me, I often take a very long time to write about it. I have to chew on it, and to metabolize it. I have to understand my own place in the story first before I can create any semblance of a clear narrative."

- Elissa Altman, author of Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create, interviewed by Michèle Dawson Haber. Link to full interview in the comments.

04/07/2025

"I didn't name the one I didn't have because in my head, when I have my first one, it'll simply be that one, just reincarnated."

- from "A Storybook Ending" by Emily Madison in our May-June 2025 edition. Link to essay in the comments.

04/07/2025

"The illustrations reflect the memoir's careful balance of restraint and emotional honesty. Sparse and expressive, Gormally's drawings invite readers into the discomfort rather than shielding them from it. Some of the most affecting moments are the quietest."

– from Elizabeth Austin's review of Everything is Fine, I'll Just Work Harder by Cara Gormally. Link to full review in the comments.

03/07/2025

"When I was a child, my dad used to say to me, "one day you'll write my story, one day, you'll write my story." He's a Holocaust survivor and he's 94 now. He's still with us, and he's just an incredible human being. And I wanted nothing more than to write his story and it was an honor, right? I have three older sisters, and I felt chosen, and I was the writer in the family, and I felt wonderful, but I was terrified."

– Bonny Reichert, Author of How to Share An Egg, interviewed by Amy Fish. Link to story in the comments.

03/07/2025

"My husband carries our one-week-old into the waiting room. The receptionist smiles at him, awash in the sparkle of a new father. I creep into the room, my steps small. I am invisible now. My womb empty."

-- from "The Postpartum Survey" by Stephanie M. Wytovich in our May-June issue. Link to the essay in comments.

03/07/2025

"Reilly dives into the alarming behavior she witnessed and endured, using it as a jumping off point to analyze our ideas around boundaries on the whole: boundaries between animalistic instinct and polite society; the brutality of, and lack of boundaries within, colonialism and nature; the desire to protect oneself while staying soft."

– from Sarah Rosenthal's review of Human/Animal: A Bestiary in Essays by Amie Souza Reilly. Link to full review in the comments.

02/07/2025

"The official text comes a few minutes later. "Alert Carolina! Emergency: Armed, dangerous person on or near campus. Go inside now; avoid windows."

-- from "Avoid Windows" by Michael Gutierrez in our May-June issue. Link to full story in the comments.