My father was a soldier in the Vietnam War when I was a baby. He told stories of his chopper crashing in a hot zone, his helmet getting grazed by a bullet, his good friend dying in an early morning ambush. My father, mother, and I went to Vietnam to see all the places he […]
Karol Nielsen
Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Black Elephants (Bison Books, 2011) and Walking A&P (Mascot Books, 2018) and the chapbooks This Woman I Thought I’d Be (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and Vietnam Made Me Who I Am (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing in nonfiction in 2012. Excerpts were honored as notable essays in The Best American Essays in 2010 and 2005. Her full poetry collection was longlisted for the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award in 2021 and was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry in 2007. Her work has appeared in Epiphany, Guernica, Lumina, North Dakota Quarterly, Permafrost, RiverSedge, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and New York Writers Workshop.
Australia
I watched surfers ride big waves at Bondi Beach and wandered into shops on Oxford Street—the Madison Avenue of Sydney. I sailed sandy estuaries around the Whitsunday Islands and went scuba diving in Cape Tribulation. I touched a giant clam with a velvety purple lining and it snapped shut like a bear trap.
Jamaica
I danced on the beach to reggae with Mojo, a Jamaican man with dreadlocks whose name means magic. We fell asleep in beach chairs by the ocean and someone stole Mojo’s Bolle sunglasses off the top of his head. It had only been two weeks since his last pair had been stolen. A security guard […]
Argentina
After college, I worked as a writer for an English language newspaper in Buenos Aires. The dirty war had ended but the country was on the verge of a coup with hyperinflation, labor strikes, power cuts. My salary was worthless and I quit to travel. I saw penguins, glaciers, icebergs, snowy Andes, gauchos on horseback.