By Swoop Based on True Events 1985 It’s a beautiful California summer evening. A few miles east of Venice beach I drive slowly along a winding street patrolling the Mar Vista Gardens Housing Projects. “Hey Sanchez, got any baseball cards?” Children plead loudly from across the street. I hand a couple to the little boys [...]

By Ashley Murrell Children’s laughter and screams of joy drifted through the air around the playground on a warm spring day. Little hands flew up into the sky, expressing their hopes and dreams of the game that was most important that day. Lilly, the teacher chosen to supervise the kids’ outside time sighed as she [...]

by Renee King Sean had fair skin, café au lait it was called, and green eyes. She, or the queen, (how she thought of herself) was an amalgam of races. Her mother could boast Irish, Native, and African American ancestry. Her father was unsure of the specifics, but knew he was Caribbean of African and [...]

By Jennifer Boyden If my parents ever found the pile of blood-soaked intestines decaying in the front yard, they never mentioned it. I had found the toad buried beneath some rotting leaves on a warm day in July. A chubby thing, it didn’t move as I rustled through its home. Even when I picked it [...]