Write Your Story: Carl Hiaasen
Presented by the Leopold Writing Program in partnership with the Santa Fe International Literary Festival.
Submissions
What kinds of injustices make you feel the most anger? Why those?
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Racism. Naively, I thought we were done with all this! It seems we've gone back 60 years quickly!
- Michael Swanson It is hard to focus, I can't hear my teacher, my stomach... hurts. It's loud. 9:00 am and I am working on a plan of where to hide during lunch. Me and my empty lunch bag and my empty stomach. My head aches. I think people know... about me. About the emptiness of nourishment in my home. It's an embarrassment beyond my control. How does this happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And who will notice and who will help.
- Anonymous |
Her former manager was built like a furious teapot. Short, stout, and constantly steaming. He managed through confusion disguised as leadership. His expectations were never clear because he seemed to believe his employees should “just sense” what he wanted. Every task felt like an impossible exam nobody had prepared for.
Once, while she was actively typing notes during a meeting, he leaned across the small conference room table until his face was inches from hers and snapped, “Are you even listening?”, as if a grown woman typing notes on her eight year old MacBook was somehow rebellious. Boundaries to him were more of a fun suggestion than a rule. Eventually coworkers admitted what she had already suspected. He was intentionally trying to push her out. Not because she was bad at the job, but because some managers treat competence like a personal insult, a threat if you will. She left, even before having another job lined up. Did the office survive? Sure, the way people survive natural disasters, together through happy hours, group texts, and mutual trauma bonding. Years later, employees still spoke about the angry little teapot boss who demanded mind reading, confused intimidation with leadership, and somehow made every room feel one degree hotter the moment he walked in. Nobody knows what happened to him. Maybe he’s still out there making conference rooms unbearable. Or maybe he’s retired on a beach somewhere, sunburned and leathered from years of alcohol, bitterness, and sucking the life out of everyone around him. - Sandy Morello |
