Kathryn Streeter

Publishing in 2016 via Mill Park Publishing under the guidance of Elaine Ambrose. I’m grateful to be included in this anthology project alongside such talent! 

#TBThursday: Published by Story|Houston, this creative nonfiction essay explores memories of my childhood. Sometimes the passing of time helps sort out the confusing joys of an upbringing. 

Relationships And IKEA: An Explosion Waiting To Happen, The Mid. 

A letter to my teenage son to tuck away for the future...because sometimes the daily things go unnoticed.

“Annuals were too fake for your taste. They had an artificial quality-a burst of flamboyance and then gone forever. Their blossoms were a little too scripted. But their alternative-the perennial-tested all of what was supposed to be substantive and eternal. 

‘Your birthday was fast approaching and you gushed to your husband that it was really something to be turning 45. He replied, "That was last year."’

Summertime. Families are on the move. Are you ready, moms? 

A timely reminder on Ten to Twenty today!

This is not a new conversation, but it’s timely. Please consider the value of allowing time to pass before you share anything family-related online. 

“Mulling is a very good thing; at the very least it keeps me honest about my own culpability in a personal family anecdote I’m considering sharing.”

“Waiting helps provide cover for my marriage and children.” 

“Perhaps everything we need to know about familial relationships can be learned from Shakespeare.”

One week after Mother's Day, let's face it, moms. Letting go of our children is perhaps as challenging as it is critical. Are we releasing our children to risk? 

Yikes, it is scary.

Fittingly, on Scary Mommy today: 

Published today on The Good Men Project​. 

I wrote this story to further contribute to a larger conversation going on about how IKEA affects relationships. My essay "The One Trip Guaranteed to Stretch Your Marriage" published in February. I was amused when just recently The Wall Street Journal​  published the highly-popular piece "Can Your Marriage Handle a Trip to IKEA?" 

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think :)

Raw square-footage was less important than PLACE for this family. Want a simple family life? Go urban. Go small. Be free. 

Today, WSJ Hilary Potkewitz probes the challenges IKEA presents to relationships in "Can Your Relationship Handle IKEA?" My personal testimony on this very theme was published by The Good Men Project. "The One Trip Guaranteed to Stretch Your Marriage"

“We knew that our young daughter had internalized our commitment to place over space. At school she was asked to define "neighborhood" and she wrote confidently from her own experience: "A neighborhood is a place where people live, work, and play." Not bad for a six-year-old.

At its core, the simple life for us was wrapped up in our appreciation for walkability. That summarizes our family’s definition of a good place, and that’s what we tell our realtor every time. We want to be able to walk to the coffee shop, grocery and pub. We’ve resided in apartments and townhouses. Once we even tried a single-family home. Today, as a family of four, we live in a downtown high-rise with two teenagers. We haven’t owned a lawn mower since 2001.

The urban life necessitated a smaller home out of which blossomed the simple life.”

Continue reading at...

Buckle up! My creative non-fiction essay was just released by the online magazine Semaphore:

https://yoursemaphorecontent.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/creative-non-fiction-by-kathryn-streeter/