Karen Rosenbaum
KAREN ROSENBAUM {[email protected]} taught English at a California community college for thirty-four gratifying years. From 2004 to 2008, she served as Dialogue’s fiction editor. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Dialogue, Sunstone, Exponent II, Irreantum, several anthologies, and her own short story collection Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives (2016). Now she primarily writes personal essays and navigates the challenges of age with her husband Ben McClinton.
Articles
Subjunctive Cases
Listen to an interview about this piece here. Laurie zips up her red jacket and curses God and Dennis. Except God probably doesn’t exist. Dennis exists. He is right in this moment existing in their…
Read moreLetter to the Editor: Another Perspective on Levi Peterson
Dear Editor, After reading Melissa Leilani Larson’s review of Levi Peterson’s short story collection, Losing a Bit of Eden (“The Promise and Limitations of Working-Class Male Protagonists,” Dialogue, Summer 2022), I would like to offer…
Read moreDialogue and the Daring Disciple
One thing a reader learns from Terryl Givens’s new biography is that no one who knew Eugene England could claim to be an objective appraiser of his life. Countless individuals revered him; he had guided…
Read moreThe River Rerun
Morning 3, Nankoweap Camp Across the river, she sees a big brown lump shamble over to the water’s edge. She wants it to be graceful, sleek, to glide through the water, not lumber like a…
Read moreThe Princess of the Pumpkin
The cat was curled against her legs. She didn’t move them, she lay very still, feeling his little warm breathing body through the electric blanket. She stretched her arms out of the sheets and reached…
Read moreHit the Frolicking, Rippling Brooks
Religions is for women. Says Madeleine, Portuguese-Catholic, chunky in her black pleated skirts, cackling always, nudging God. Women believe it. Women practice it. When pews are filled they are filled with women. Men eh they…
Read moreLong Divisions
It is alive, the Colorado, its heavy brown waters pulsing through limestone and sandstone layers gouged out before it learned manners from the government and Glen Canyon Dam. “She don’t give a hot sheep shit,”…
Read moreFor Meg — With Doubt and Faith
In times of drought, it is hard to remember times of flood. After yet another California winter without sufficient water, we take quick showers, rarely flush the toilet, let our lawn grow long to hide…
Read moreOne on the Aisle
Paula had the aisle seat. Her younger brother Tony was in the middle, next to Sugar, and the two of them pressed against the window and each other and pointed at cloud formations. Down below…
Read moreWallace Stegner: The Unwritten Letter
I remember well the first time I met Wallace Stegner because I wanted so much to prove him wrong.
Read moreReading Between the Sheets
You know, what constipates her, really, is all those folks peering over her shoulder, not only looking for their names or themselves on her Mac screen or on the pages between the grainy covers of…
Read moreOut of the Woods
Here they go, Carma without her cane—she’ll hang onto Dan if her legs give way—through the glass doors into the maze of parents and teenagers and little brothers and sisters, milling, waving, shrieking, whimpering. “I…
Read moreHavesu
He watches Elain’s buttocks, the tan shorts browned at the seat, as she walks briskly ahead of him on the narrow trail. Her dirty orange day pack bounces on her back, the leaky canteen a…
Read moreSally Didn’t Sleep Here
“Sally snores,” says Ed, and I sink into my shoulders and smile uncomfortably at Gemma and Frank on the couch. “I don’t snore,” I say defensively. “I don’t even sleep.” “Ho,” answers Ed. He leans…
Read moreAntidote for Solitude: The Life of Bonnie Bobet
The death of a loved one may evoke anguish, regret, confusion, anger, shock, bitterness, despair, relief, gratitude, nostalgia, even joy. But the death of my friend Bonnie evoked in me, both on that Friday morning…
Read moreHarrell’s Mettle | Jack Harrell, A Sense of Order and Other Stories
How do you read a collection of short stories by one author? Do you curl up with the book the same way you would with a novel, reading one story after another until your leg falls asleep or your stomach growls for food or the phone rings? Do you read one story, then close the book to think about it, perhaps reopening the book to reread parts or the whole? Do you expect the stories to be connected by characters or theme or tone and therefore search for universal elements? Do you come to each story afresh, hungry for wonder and new insights?
Read moreRequiem in L Minor
Today the L’s. In the old address book, the L pages are impossible—phone numbers lined out, zip codes scratched in, whole entries x’d or margined with a question mark. Even the H’s are more decipherable.…
Read moreAcute Distress, Intensive Care
Barb’s dying, Carma thinks, and she steadies herself against the chest of drawers as Dan, kneeling beside his sister’s bed, strokes Barb’s face. Barb’s head seems to be rocking slightly on the pillow. Her eyes…
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