We proudly present another amazine reading!
Our wonderful contributor Diana L. Gustafson reads an extract from her nonfiction piece Curating Death, published on The Amazine in January 2025.
Give it a listen below ❤
Read More »Tag: nonfiction
Diary of an adventurous homebody
by Haley Young
“It’s just that you don’t seem that adventurous,” said an acquaintance when I told her about our plans to move into a converted camper van.
I smiled. She wasn’t wrong about my personality. She was wrong in her assumption that living on the road demands the highest level of adventurous spirit. Two years into travelling full time, I’m more of a homebody than ever.
I just take my house with me.
Read More »Say Cheese
by Gillian Fletcher
Apartment hunting in The Netherlands is an adventure, to say the least. If you read about it online, it sounds like non-stop madness riddled with scammers, false hopes, and broken dreams.
So far, it’s only a little bit like that.
Read More »On Getting Dressed and Getting Coffee
by Charlotte Deason Robillard
Getting dressed
When I was somewhere around age 8 or 9 – still homeschooled, living in rural Alabama, and mostly wearing thrift store clothes and hand-me-downs from my cousin – I meticulously put together an outfit I was proud of. Basing my vision off of whatever snippets of pop culture I’d been exposed to – Nickelodeon on the cable TV at my grandmother’s house, my best friend’s occasional copies of Tiger Beat – I pulled together a study in plum: purple jean shorts, a purple paisley oversized t-shirt, and a purple-hued tapestry vest. Since I didn’t go to school and I couldn’t wear jean shorts to church, the only obvious place to debut my outfit was homeschool day at the local roller skating rink. Despite my general lack of athletic ability, I was pretty good at skating, and I was excited to cruise around the rink in my fly new ‘fit. But my outfit was too avant-garde for the Pelham, Alabama homeschool crowd, and I soon had my first experience of bullying. Two girls (who I envision in the bland but popular Umbros and Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts of the era) shoved me and snickered about my clothes as they whizzed by me in a fit of giggles. I don’t remember what they said, but I remember being hurt and confused. I was the one who was dressed cool, right? I had seen vests and oversized t-shirts on TV, and I’d so carefully paired each color and pattern. This was my first introduction to conformity, and while my feelings were hurt, my taste for getting dressed up had not been stifled.
Read More »Concord Purple on the Sunrise
by Pran Phucharoenyos
The thunderhead is willing to break any and all windows because there’s no insurance around, and still, I take a blue car out West. The way I brought myself down to California— you would have been proud.
I leave Enchanted Wells adjacent to Rainbow Blvd and across from Wishing Coin Road and other counterfeit fairytale worlds Nevadan roads titled themselves after. The Santa Ana reports here that this boulevard I’m residing in contains steamed rainbows from kitchen sink dishwashers and the youthful and overly sentimental scent of a clean glass picked up from the cabinet reminds me to bring water when I leave to lie flat on backyard artificial grass as if I’m in wait for a high danger surgery as the southwest sticks on my sunscreened legs.
Read More »I Could Be Modern Art
by Natalie Hunter
I used to care so much about my body hair. I remember the face-melting shame I felt when a boy at school announced loudly that I had hairy arms, while we coloured pictures at a table. But, when I think of it now, it is just a memory of a memory. I feel detached from the experience. I grew up with plenty of unconditional love at home. Therefore, I knew intrinsically that my value was inherent and unshakable … at home. Like so many people in this world, it took venturing out into the world for school, to initiate the confusing experience of being “othered.” Some years later, at the age of fourteen, I would stand in front of the mirror enumerating every single thing that was unacceptable about my beautiful, youthful body, as if identifying the offending aberrations could bring me closer to perfection. It amuses me to think of that fourteen-year-old seeing me now, two weeks from my fortieth birthday, thinking, “How could you let yourself become so ugly?”
Read More »Drummer
by Dane Erbach
“Harder!” Joe shouts from his podium, yells over violin bows stuck in the air like an unruly haircut. “Hit that bass drum as hard as you can!”
The orchestra spins toward me—rows of smarmy teenage smiles, annoyed; of middle schoolers wild with amusement, squirming their chairs.
“Have you ever heard Jurassic Park’s soundtrack?” Joe asks, his bald head shining in the fluorescent light. “The big BOOM at the beginning?”
Read More »Curating Death
by Diana L. Gustafson
“What’s death got to do with it?” Our museum tour guide grins as she makes the irreverent reference to Tina Turner’s best-selling hit. Patty knows how to grab the attention of Gen X tourists clustered around her in the grand centre block of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. In a former life, she was probably everyone’s favourite high school music teacher.
Patty leans in. “Death simultaneously intrigues and repels us.” I know she’s speaking to me. I signed up for the afternoon tour because I was curious about burial rituals practised in ancient times. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Easier than facing tough questions haunting my messy life. I soon discover that each pause on the tour unearths relics of my struggles to make sense of love and death.
Read More »French Press
by Megan Nicholson
I asked for this reality of living on my own, alone. Being alone means you are solely responsible for your quality of life, with no one else to rely on. And goddamn, I really need to clean these dishes. They’ve been sitting there for a week, and god knows there’s plenty more around this damn apartment that needs to be washed. I did the first half of the dishes yesterday; now I need this second half done so I can clean out Pepper’s litter tray. The poor thing’s open bathroom is filled with interwoven fur and hay and pellets. There’s so much to get done, and there’s still four hours before I need to get to bed and wake up for work tomorrow.
Read More »The Letter Contract of the “Civilised”
by Roukia Ali
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – George Orwell, “1984”
Before you are to be welcomed into the ranks of us Civilised people, we ask that you review the criteria of your adherence below. Failure to abide by and/or blatant infractions committed in regards to these articles will not go unpunished. Know that in either case we are just, good, peaceful people. We weigh all matters impartially, as is the responsibility of our faculty as the supreme holders of power. Yet to ensure the order by which these operations are made possible, we hold you in writing and in action to the same regard of compliance and critical thought.
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