By Kathy Harding
They discover what they’re willing to risk for love.
Buoyed by the brazen optimism of our new love affair, my Kiwi, Rob, and I cast ourselves adrift in a revelatory landscape, the South Island of New Zealand.
I was 41 years old and desperate for a baby, he was a stranger from the bottom of [...]

By Amanda Mander
“Stay away from my son,” his father said as we stood alone on the balcony. Tears were threatening to burst through my barely-calm exterior when I noticed Kirin, my fiance, listening from inside the Bombay apartment. His warm, brown eyes pleaded with me to hold strong against the force [...]

By Mary Jo McConahay
Floating in a Beat-Up Canoe
Yellow-headed swallows dipped in and out of thick mist resting on the river. That fog probably followed the water’s curve for miles, I thought, maybe the whole length of Belize. I won’t see a thing from the boat.
Atop a high bank overlooking the Macal, I [...]

by Jeanne Stark
A story of war, lost love and hidden keepsakes.
Her name was Michiko Araki and she was my father’s girlfriend.  That’s all I know, but here is their story.
My father was 25 years old when the USS Talladega sailed into port in Honshu, Japan in October, 1945.  Hiroshima was a pile of rubble.  [...]

by Angie Chuang
Two sisters-in-law in Kabul unveil the domestic world of post-Taliban Afghan women to me — and try to marry me off to one of their own.
The yellow door was made of wood that felt too light.  Every time we, the Americans – Laila, Stephanie, and I – swung it open, we [...]

by Rosalie Justus
Hiking sola in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca, the author worries about same-species predators and other problems.
I know right away, the Dutch aren’t going. Marlie’s teeth are all purple from the herbs she’s been chewing. They’re a sharp contrast against her pale skin. She’s one of those naturalists that think if it’s [...]

by Kim Brown Seely
How Rwanda Reached Out and Grabbed Me.
Charles weighed 400 pounds, stood nearly six feet when fully upright, and was one hundred percent alpha-male.  His massive black head was luxuriantly hairy, and our eyes met daringly as he reclined in a bamboo thicket as big as a Barcalounger.   Charles, I’d [...]

by Kevin McCaughey
Natashas have always seemed long to me.  Long-haired, long-legged, comfy at great heights, like in an expensive revolving restaurant.
Which is funny, because I never met a Natasha like that.  But, if I ever saw a Russian girl like that, I’d think she would be a Natasha.
My Natasha wasn’t that type at all.  She [...]

by Landon Spencer
My friends are concerned.
“Why are you going to Yugoslavia ” they want to know.
“There is no Yugoslavia.”  I reply.  Like the pop star, Prince, who for a time changed his name to an unutterable symbol, the word Yugoslavia can now only be invoked when preceded by the phrase formerly known as.

“Why are you [...]

by Catherine Parker
“So you’re bailing on me.”
“Look, I’m sorry Cath. I’m not earning pounds like you are. I just can’t afford it.”
I sighed into the phone, and looked out the window of my tiny flat in London. Rain, rain and more rain. It suited my mood. I had been living in London for eight months [...]