Term: General and Speculative Nonfiction
Explore all pages categorised under the heading General and Speculative Nonfiction below.
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Where is the River?
I never leave Paris without having the sense of a missed opportunity. Not because I didn’t go to the coolest or oldest or weirdest bistro...
The Girl No One Knew
It was 1975, in Irkutsk—a quiet Siberian city wrapped in the concrete hush of the Soviet era. My grandmother and I walked through her friend...
Studying French as a Chinese American Woman
In Avignon, hungry and desperately wanting lunch, I wandered into a bakery. Like any customer, I went up to the counter and ordered a sandwich,...
Easter in Yamate
The sight greeting me as I walked out of the condo in Futakotamagawa in Tokyo at 7am on Easter Sunday felt auspicious. There was no...
A Strange Gift
He came home from work the other day carrying, apart from his usual laptop bag, a gift box about the size of a pop-up toaster....
A Bloom in the Dark
Just north of Paris, where I’d moved with my husband Ben a year earlier, the French national football team was playing Germany at the Stade...
Issue 15: Paris
Paris has long been the site of opulence, resistance, rebellion, and style. It has inspired great writing and writers, philosophy and philosophers. In this collection,...
Summer of Seventeen
My older brother Dan and I stood patiently along the side of the road north of Accra, Ghana. A white Daihatsu pickup truck approached, and...
Service No Service
“Listen,” says K. “Not even the radio’s working.” Blips of static as her fingertips spin the dial. The low hum of our tires on the hardball....
Jojo the Spirit Animals First Hike to Uncle Ed Thomas Grave
Jojo came to us on a night with one of those big full moons. Maybe it was called blood, grapefruit, or wolf, depending, but I...
Eternal and Temporary
It was already past nightfall, the sky glowing orange to the west where a hungry wildfire swallowed meadow after mountain, when I slipped out of...
And Dil Came Tumbling After
“You go ahead,” he said. That at least is what he meant when he made that familiar gesture—a quick, upward-turned ruffling of the air before...
Active Recall
After I found out I was going to have a baby, I started filming one second of every day. I used an app that allows...
Abroad in the Night
I should be terrified of bears. More than fifteen years ago, in the Teton Range of Wyoming, a friend and I were hiking down a...
Issue 14: Survival
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 14th edition, on the theme of ‘survival.’ Many thanks to all contributors and the editors...
Infinite scroll
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Under Your Flaming Shirt
You too might have done this. No, you, of all people, my friend, must have. I say that not just because I relish the security...
Pilgrim's Fire
As I walk farther up Woodenshoe Canyon its walls grow closer together and more sinuous. The floor of the canyon is mostly sand, and the...
What I Thought I Had
My father’s property sat at the end of the newly cut Dream Farm Road—a steep rutted track through uncut forest, bordered by the Point Reyes...
Issue 13: Fire
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 13th edition, on the theme of ‘fire.’ Fire: /ˈfʌɪə/ origin: Old English fȳr (noun), fȳrian...
Without Rhyme of Reason
“Everything there looked foreign,” you said. That must have been in one of our early conversations though not the earliest. You were talking about your...
Cut Through: Graves and Cats through a Samurai trail
From a distance, the houses encrusting the hills of the Kotsubo neighbourhood remind me of barnacles. They crowd together, layer upon layer, hiding the surface...
Just Breathe
Feet dragging from the elevator, I punch in the pin to my front door, ready to escape the heat and humidity of my three-minute walk...
The Great Falafel War of Egypt
My time in Egypt through the auspices of the Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad allowed for many smaller-scale experiences that augmented the wonderful lectures and visits to...
Pieces of Time Caught
We cross the arctic as it tips toward 6 a.m. There are two colours: Shell and shadow. Daylight lands in steps of light. Onyx, galaxy,...
In Salt Lake City, Everyone and Everything is Queer*
While standing at the bar waiting for The Sun’s bartender to grab my Corona, I noticed a man with thinning brown hair, medium height and...
Issue 12: Cities
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 12th edition. In this issue, we present work on the theme of ‘cities,’ whether in...
Lessons from the Pandemic Loneliness
Of late, I find myself thinking a lot about time. Perhaps it’s a visceral reaction to the books I am reading. Leafing through the tales...
Doing A Geographical
Half the world’s population of Manx shearwaters—small, albatross-like seabirds—breed on Skokholm, a tiny island off the coast of Wales. Before World War I, two ornithologists...
In the Name of
In one of his many tributes in verse to a mother figure, probably his own, A. K. Ramanujan speaks of the strange attachment she had...
A Screaming Man Is Not a Dancing Bear
Today in 2023 I am in a rowboat, floating quietly down a tributary of the Mekong River Delta. The stalks and green foliage of water...
Issue 11: Ecology
Welcome to Panorama’s 11th edition. In this issue we turn our attention to ecology—from the word’s earliest roots to present-day ecologies which span people, organisms,...
Sylvie’s Big Bush
When I was in my early 20s, a year or two before I signed my recording deal with Hollywood Records, I found that the best...
Idle Pleasures of Zoning Out
Remember James Thurber’s Walter Mitty? That timorous, awkward geezer who slips into a fantasyland, courts danger, and performs a series of heroic feats, while actually...
Issue 10: Intimacy
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 10th edition. This issue focuses on INTIMACY in all its forms from a closeness and...
Fullers, Flowers, and a Fish Knife
London, the city chained to the word “grey,” is rarely described in the context of colour, its industrial history cementing its reputation for dirty air....
A Few Seconds of Stillness
There’s a bench in London perched on the head of a hill like the Queen’s crown. It is a swelling of the land, a gentle...
London, My London: A Town of Contrasts
East London reminds me of the ingredients of a casserole, different elements in the pot with some of them blending quickly while the others take...
Like Climbing Mt. Everest
Rising like Himalayan peaks, four bamboo poles square the altar and pierce the fog. Between swings a canopy, a red ruffled valley cradling gifts for...
Everest Descent
The curtains flowed rhythmically in and out with the wail of the siren. Different from the wide-open view of the rescue helicopter, the ambulance felt...
Three Steps Away
You cannot recline on that bench. A gently arching backrest would have been nice but the bench is attached to a wall. Its legs, made...
Issue 9: Borders
In this issue we have work from India, Nigeria, Philippines, Israel, Netherlands, UK, USA, Brazil, South Korea, Thailand, Germany, Italy, and more. In many ways...
The Seven-Year Itch
Becca tells me it has a name, and it’s the seven-year itch. Then a grouse flies up from the dirt road, startled by the pickup...
The Idiom
Swirling a glass of wine at the bar, I silently rehearse the question du jour for my bartender-friend, Réjean, on my final night in Rouen....
Fifteen Stones
My childhood best friend travelled to Rome with her family when we were thirteen, and brought me back two film canisters, one black, one opaque...
Bucket List
There are some things I absolutely refuse to do again. The list is astoundingly short and may surprise you. I will never go to a...
The Tempest of Belluno
The sun peeks through green leaves and branches, encasing the dome beneath the canopy in a brilliant light show. With every gentle touch of the...
Sylvie and the Wild Boar
Sylvie had been my best friend since we were thirteen. She was always the baby to my boss, and each of us had always been...
Rats in Her Attic
I don’t remember the first time I met her. Surely, on either of my two previous visits to that dingy apartment, I must have seen...
Duino Castle and Rainer Maria Rilke
I have never met you. How could I have? You died twenty-seven years before I was born. That is why I am at Duino Castle...
Issue 8: Space
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s SPACE issue. From the very small to the enormity of our imaginations, essays grow from...
Guatemala
It feels like someone has stubbed a cigarette out on my chest. It’s dark, the middle of the night. I’m in bed. And, it happens...
Homesickness
Had I ever been homesick? It was a fair question from my friend, Priscilla, as we sat in a Seattle coffee shop and talked about...
Susanna's Secrets
Auguste Rodin’s well-known bronze sculpture, The Secret depicts a mysterious object held between two hands [iii]. The hands around ‘the secret’ belong to two individuals....
Fruits of Summer
When the clusters of round green fruits peek out from under the broad leaves of the santol tree in our yard, I am filled with...
Four Arisings
Every story starts with the sun. The light illuminating the page you are reading began its journey over one hundred thousand years ago. After it...
Remember the Dead
My family has been making headstones and caretaking cemeteries for almost a hundred years. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about death, memorializing it,...
No Deep Roots
I’ve done this before, I think. Maybe one too many times as my body denies the journey, tucked up in the front passenger seat of...
Issue 7: Dawn
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s DAWN issue. This bright, awakening, and challenging composition comprises a multitude of world views, places,...
Wars, No Peace
With all that’s been happening in this country I will always call home, people like me who live overseas are less likely to want to...
War-Torn
“This is a very nice place,” said Aya, our Cambodian intern, one long breath after the big, red Rural bus dropped us off the highway...
Sugarlandia, In A Bubble
Five months into a mid-career gap year, I traveled to Bacolod, the capital city of Negros Occidental, Sugar Bowl of the Philippines. “Why not go...
Bleeding Heart
We all heard the shots, a faint crack at first, then growing louder and more insistent, like a parade with the drummer gone wild. I...
The Postcard
I live at the base of the Eiffel Tower, my windows framing the symbol of France like borders of a postcard. Every night on the...
Fernweh
The first week of my freshman year of college I found myself stumped by a question I had never been asked before. ‘Where are you...
The Catalan Lottery Ticket
It is February, 1974, a year before Generalissimo Franco’s demise. Things are tense in Barcelona. The angst is muffled by Catalan defiance and big city...
There’s No Place
Emma says home is where I am, and I say that my home is where she is. Sometimes, we joke that the spot she nuzzles...
Privilege
It’s Saturday morning and I’m heading for the farmer’s market in my town, which is two miles from my house. From June through November, this...
Alone in Porto
Seagulls fly overhead, adding to the mystique of Porto, the second city of Portugal. From my balcony in Rua do Almada, a side street in...
Issue 6: War & Peace
Welcome to Panorama’s WAR & PEACE issue. This collection, months in the making, deeply explores the themes of war and peace, with a special emphasis...
October Beaches and the Palette of Days
Back in Marseille, it’s still possible to swim in the late reaches of October. The water, not being oceanic, stays warm, and like the temperature...
The Princess and the Shipbuilder
He’s drunk. I don’t know how I know that. Personal space in South Korea feels non-existent. The Asian ‘bubble’ is a few inches rather than...
Getting to Darat Al Funun
To get to Darat al Funun ask the concierge at your hotel to write the name in Arabic so that your taxi will drop you...
Looking for Lorca
In Spain, they are looking into neglected corners of the national psyche. They are rummaging their collective memory, retelling their history, prying into wounds that...
The Face of the Little Girl
On my way to work on Friday, 5th October, 2016, I used the rough path leading to the main road from my house on Quarry...
La Parada
Peach-hued clouds slash across the Mexican sky like a rip in a banner of grey-blue fabric as night falls. Hovering in the darkness, the illuminated...
City of a Different Sunlight
Here is the spot on the highway towards Albuquerque, where I stood with my thumb out and my bike helmet held over my heart as...
You Must (Not!) Set Forth at Dawn
There are cities that never sleep. I was raised in one: Lagos. So you can imagine the rude awakening that awaited me in this new...
A Tour of Memories
It is expected you would know a city where you have lived all your life by heart; it would seem natural if you knew it...
Issue 5: Lost
Welcome to Panorama‘s long-awaited LOST, our fifth issue, which we are dedicating to the great traveller, Anthony Bourdain, whose recent passing has affected us all....
The Price of Redemption
Guilt is an opinionated dream crusher with better stalking skills than a student loan bill collector. It caught me one January evening as I sat...
Triptych: London
East London reminds me of the ingredients of a casserole, different elements in the pot with some of them blending quickly while the others take...
Riverside
I walked down the ramp, to the edge of the river, and sat on the quay, my calves and feet dangling above the water. I...
High Hopes on the Cotswold Way
The plan was to quit my job then walk the Cotswold Way, a 102-mile path along a Jurassic-age escarpment in southwest England. Beyond that there...
This is What it Sounds Like
I touched a Beluga whale when I was twenty years old. My fingertips slid across its salt-kissed melon forehead that is understood to change shape...
Leaving to Go Home
I had just stepped into Malaysia. Thailand was behind me. The customs officer beamed and nodded, recognising immediately that I was a fellow Malaysian. “Hello,...
Swimming with the Fishes
‘If you go to Caye Caulker, see Juni.’ The Australian woman whose name I never caught shouted this tip as she waved goodbye and got...
My First Visit to the Trans-cultural Health Improvement Center
A few hours ago, in the middle of doing the laundry, I get a call from my friend Damien. He’s on the edge of death...
Mattituck 1980
When I was four years old, my dad snapped his Achilles tendon playing volleyball at his company’s summer picnic. For two months, the best months...
At the Edge of the Earth or its Centre
How many people have ever confronted an animal – not roadkill, not a beloved and ailing pet, but an animal – how many have looked...
In Flight: Her First American
I first noticed her in the Athens airport. I was sitting outside security, trying to finish a water bottle full of Airborne that wouldn’t be...
We May Never See Penguins
When I quit smoking the night before we left, it felt like a joke. My first attempt, in Korea, had been cutting down to five...
Issue 4: Seen
Perhaps more than any other time in recent history, how we see places and one another will determine what happens next to our human family....
Walking Budapest
When I think back to my trip to Budapest, I think, first, of her street signs. Hungarian street signs look like puzzles of Latin letters...
Hameen's Wallet
The wallet’s leather folds wink beneath the shuffle of feet on Tottenham Court Road. Tired feet, anxious feet, melancholy feet, sweaty feet tromp around it,...
Life Sentence
The air was cold and still, a skin-tightening astringent kiss from mother nature welcoming me back. And nothing moved. The precedent stillness before the storm....
Moscow Hometown Blues (In the Key of B)
The expansive breakfast buffet at the fancy-pants hotel helped in dismissing the fact that we’d been evicted the day before. While Emma used the free...
The Road on the Moss
There are some journeys that stay with you. They don’t need to be epic Himalayan treks or rainforest expeditions. I was 10 or 11 when...
Annaghmakerrig
We were sitting around an ancient oak table in the dining area of a mid-18th century Irish farmhouse, all seven of us: the poet from...
Ashes to Ashes
In the fourth grade, my teacher gave each student a vial of ash from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the state of...
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