Author, Tree Street Kids
By Amanda Cleary Eastep Sometimes you just have to change your perception of a thing. This isn’t the same as changing your perspective. I mean, no matter how I view the garden space off of my condo patio, it is what it is. A small plot of clay-filled soil, a few pots, and a lot […]
Read MoreThe title is a play on the Bachman-Turner Overdrive classic from the 70s, that decade when we packed Wonder Bread in our school lunches every day. But this is a new decade in my life…the pre-homesteading one in which I bake my own bread and take another step toward a future life on five acres […]
Read MoreBy Amanda Cleary Eastep The bunny is looking at me with black eyes from it’s fuzzball face. My heart begins a slow melt that seems to move to my mouth, which turns down at the corners, the lower lip protruding in a “that’s so cute I could cry” pout. My daughter and I have wanted […]
Read MoreThese are refrigerator pickles. They are delicious and easy to make, but they will only be good for 2 months in the refrigerator (if they aren’t eaten by then). They won’t help you survive the winter. They won’t make it until January when you might decide, on a warm winter night, to roast hot dogs […]
Read MoreYou’re driving when suddenly you realize it’s Saturday, and instead of going in the direction of the new restaurant to meet your friend, you’re headed along the route you take to work Monday through Friday. We are creatures of habit. That’s why I took Tuesday off. Crazy, I know. What will she do next? It […]
Read MoreIt was my lucky day. At least that’s what the neon yellow piece of paper sticking out of the library book said. Your Lucky Day Collection The medieval mystery I snagged from the New Arrival shelf just before the library closed appeared to be the perfect book for a weekend in Michigan, so, with unexpected […]
Read MoreSo this is something of a pre-announcement… As my three followers (mom, hubby, and Fido) all know, I’ve been on a hiatus from this blog. But for good reason. To concentrate on some crucial writing goals, the most important being the creation of my new freelance writing site, Word Ninja. Think of this post as a […]
Read More[Written for catapult magazine’s Sensory Experience issue https://www.catapultmagazine.com/sensory-experience/article/she-heightened-my-awareness-of-the-world%5D From across the uncleared dinner table, my grandmother feeds me stories—how she ran opossum traps in the morning before school, how she gathered herbs on the Round Bluff, how she watched her little brother die of pneumonia. I listen to the same ones over and over, because […]
Read More[Published in catapult magazine’s Going Local issue: http://www.catapultmagazine.com/going-local/article/bruised-peaches-taste-sweeter%5D I bought 10 pounds of bruised peaches from the farm stand today. Five dollars, AS IS. I knew it meant a good hour that evening of peeling and excising the moldy brown spots, and I started to walk away. But I also knew that if I carried […]
Read MoreSeven teenagers sit around the table, notebooks in front of them, looking to me to teach them how words work. How words flow out of the end of that purple gel pen or the borrowed pencil and somehow arrange themselves on lines and into stories. I have barely finished a more-challenging-than-usual semester of teaching a media […]
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Amanda Cleary Eastep 