Pepperoni Paranoia
Pepperoni is out to get me. The little bastards scattered on top of my sumptuous pizza are death in dots. Melted cheese may entice me to taste one of the tiny morsels, but I know better. They will be my downfall.
When I glance across the table to Mom, she cuts away at her fat slice of pizza and all its cheesy goodness while blissfully unaware of the death that may soon await me. The fat and oil from the oven have burnt the tips of some of the pepperoni, its smell curls around the curve of my zit-covered nose.
There is a gentle mumble about the restaurant as it steadily fills with people the closer it gets to dinnertime. And yet, it does not escape me that none of these strangers gasp in horror on my behalf. No one jumps in to intervene, pulling the pepperoni from its cheesy trap in my defense. But I suppose no one will since Mom doesn’t make a move to do so. And oddly, neither to do I. Instead, I just stare at it, fork and knife in hand. When I finally cut into the pizza, I make sure to avoid any and all of the meat dots. But I fear they have contaminated the rest of the food regardless. Its fatty juices could have been leaking into the crust, poisoning it while I was mindlessly staring at the slice.
Pepperoni is cunning. Like I said, it is clearly out to get me.
“Planning to eat, Moll?” Mom asks, placing a chunk of her own pizza in her mouth.
I don’t reach over to slap it away because I know hers isn’t poisoned. I know that it has not been tampered with or tainted. But I know mine has. The question is why and by who? It is a mystery I have no intent on solving. My only resolve is to push my plate away.
One dreary winter day, nearly two years into dating, he ended things rather oddly: “I don’t think you’ll be okay if we break up,” he explained, “which is why we have to break up.” Though confounding, I suppose it was not surprising—he often resented how much I seemed to need him.
A mass of white caps on a disheveled sea crisscrosses the horizon, the aftermath of a hurricane that skidded up the western face of Baja from Cabo past Punta Hughes. The storm made a westerly turn on its northern trajectory, just far enough off the coast to send a small amount of rain and mountainous surf to our small pueblo. Wave after wave, a tight fetch. a disorganized army of marching swell lines with little space between them, and out the far points, close-out walls of water.
Midlife doesn’t announce itself with milestones — it arrives in contrasts. One moment, you’re lighting candles for a graduation. The next, you’re watching your mother shrink into a hospital gown.
When I was a kid, my gender and race lived together, tightly tied in a braid on top of my head. My brothers and I share a skin tone that is pale in the winter, and cinnamon in the summer. Our father was the only black person in our rural town, and as far as we knew, we were the only mixed-race kids on Earth.
“Any requests?” my daughter asks from the backseat of the car. I’m driving up Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway to drop her off for her first year of college. She plays DJ while my husband and younger daughter count passing Teslas. Through New Jersey and over the GW Bridge, we listen to their mix of Phoebe Bridgers, Kimya Dawson, and Big Thief. We’re all a little nervous, unsure about what life will be like once we say goodbye.
"Don't you think it's kinda weird, not showing your face for like, 229 months?" Bunnie, an anthropomorphic rabbit, lightly chided me. She wasn't wrong. I hadn’t booted up Nintendo’s original Animal Crossing game in nearly twenty years.
In purple light of my daughter’s first concert, lyrics wrangle with all the fears, hopes, and possibilities of growing up. Light-up stars glow into the darkness as pictures of the artist as a young girl flicker behind her. A young pop star sits at the baby grand, singing into a purple haze. I glance over at my girl, singing along, and in her profile, I see her at age twelve. I see myself at twelve too. I remember and imagine her at twenty, all of the ages I have been and she will be. A little girl voice calls out to us, and tears well up as we search for ourselves there, among the stars.
The sun was a golden coin that afternoon — if only it had never set. For her 10th birthday, Robin’s mom let her have a friend over for a sleepover. She chose me. Robin’s grandma came, and so did her uncle. He was very nice.
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
It is a simple and easy excuse given my condition. Despite the fact that my stomach grumbles in defiance of my paranoid mind, I do not take a single bite of the pizza. Curiously, something chimes in the back of my head. A tiny red flag waves itself in my mind begging to be hailed. But something muffles the flag’s cry. The ridiculous notion that I will die if I eat this pepperoni pizza permeates. It echoes through the unreasonable recesses of my mind, consuming all my thoughts. True, it is the same pizza I have eaten dozens of times before. But this time is different. I know it is. If only I could make Mom believe me.
Something is wrong. I feel the red flag flap with a hurricane’s force begging to be seen. And yet, something else smothers it. A stillness of certainty settles the flapping flag. I know I will die if I eat this pizza. My mind numbs the longer I continue to watch the treacherous food. Pepperoni doesn’t care if I almost have my bachelor’s degrees. It just makes all reason slip away. The meat doesn’t discriminate against anyone.
“Are you okay?”
Mom’s voice dances over the top of the dome, the invisible bubble that has nestled over my mind. When my eyes unwillingly move from the pizza and land on her face, they take in her concerned gaze. Brows slightly knit together in unspoken questions. Her lips are pulled into a small frown and she has stopped eating her pizza, though I don’t know why. Hers isn’t poisoned. Mine is. The flag stirs once more as my eyes shift back to my pizza.
“Yeah,” I say, not looking her in the eye. “I’m fine.”
-Mollie Williamson
Some of the most compelling creative nonfiction begins with the feelings we are tempted to avoid: anger, resentment, shame, fear, or the sense that we have an axe to grind. In this six-week workshop, writers will explore how to follow that emotional heat toward deeper, more honest work—without sacrificing compassion, complexity, or craft. Through close readings, writing exercises, discussion, and constructive feedback, we’ll consider how to transform strong feelings into writing that reaches beyond catharsis and connects with readers.
IT’S NO SECRET THAT FEEDBACK IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS.
In fact, we argue that it might be the most important part of the process.
But it’s hard to find a writing community. It’s hard to find the people who are willing to take the time and the effort to read your work and give the feedback you really, truly deserves.
That’s where HerStry Critique Groups come in!
HerStry Critique Groups are small groups of 6 women who gather online for 6 weeks to share their writing, give constructive feedback and gain skills as writers.
Weekly online sessions last approximately ninety minutes, with three women sharing their work each week. Writers of all genres and levels are welcome and you may share both works of fiction and nonfiction.
Sessions take place on Mondays 7PM CT, Tuesdays 11AM CT, Fridays 11AM CT
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE HERSTRY CRITIQUE GROUPS?
Six 90 minute live workshop sessions
Three 20 minutes sessions in the “hot seat” to get you work critiqued
Written and verbal feedback from your fellow workshop participants
A weekly in depth edit and critique of your work from the group leader after each session
Weekly writing goals and accountability check ins
Full video recordings of each session to keep for your records
Say goodbye to the lonely, stuck in your head writing life!
LET’S WRITE!
From conception to submission. Let’s make summer sizzle with stories.
Writing a short story doesn’t happen in one session. It takes multiple drafts to get it exactly right, to create characters that come to life for the reader and a world they can’t stop thinking about. In this seven week course we will work on a single short story from conception to submission ready. The seven week session will include generative brainstorming sessions, short story craft talks, multiple workshops for feedback from fellow writers, and detailed line by line feedback and edits from your instructor. Plus, we’ll talk about submission venues, cover letters, and when to know if your story is ‘finished.’
IT’S NO SECRET THAT FEEDBACK IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS.
In fact, we argue that it might be the most important part of the process.
But it’s hard to find a writing community. It’s hard to find the people who are willing to take the time and the effort to read your work and give the feedback you really, truly deserves.
That’s where HerStry Critique Groups come in!
HerStry Critique Groups are small groups of 6 women who gather online for 6 weeks to share their writing, give constructive feedback and gain skills as writers.
Weekly online sessions last approximately ninety minutes, with three women sharing their work each week. Writers of all genres and levels are welcome and you may share both works of fiction and nonfiction.
Sessions take place on Mondays 7PM CT, Tuesdays 11AM CT, Fridays 11AM CT
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE HERSTRY CRITIQUE GROUPS?
Six 90 minute live workshop sessions
Three 20 minutes sessions in the “hot seat” to get you work critiqued
Written and verbal feedback from your fellow workshop participants
A weekly in depth edit and critique of your work from the group leader after each session
Weekly writing goals and accountability check ins
Full video recordings of each session to keep for your records
Say goodbye to the lonely, stuck in your head writing life!
October 7, 14, 21, 28, November 4 and 11 CT
WRITING THE SEX SCENE.
Writing a sex scene can be delirious fun, a harrowing challenge, a literary milestone—possibly the most important part of building your short story or book. In our six weeks together, you’ll experience just about every possible emotion as you explore the erotic in different modes: comic, tender, harrowing, soul-shattering … because it really is all about the characters’ feelings, not just the mechanics. So we’ll talk about tone. Vocabulary. Metaphor. Sensory detail. How to get big emotions on the page … and when to pull back and let the reader’s imagination go to work.
This is a course for writers who want to explore the intersection between the novel and short stories, and would like to weave their short stories into a story cycle (or collection of "linked stories" or "composite novel"). This is also a class about the interaction of form and content, and how one influences the other. We will read works of interlinked stories by writers from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, focusing on modern classics and contemporary practitioners of these hybrid forms. Weekly discussions will center on elements of craft, such as the expansion and compression of time, setting as an organizing and connecting principle, character development within and between stories, structure and plot for interconnected stories, and responding to literary influences in the same genre.
This six-week course guides writers through the literary submission process, offering insider insight and practical tools to help you get your work into the world. We’ll demystify everything from reading submission calls to writing cover letters and choosing the right journals. Along the way, we’ll workshop short bios, develop submission trackers, and build personalized plans that align with your voice and goals.
By the end of the course, you’ll walk away with a polished piece ready to send, a tailored submission list, and the confidence to navigate the lit mag world with clarity and purpose.
Ideal for writers of literary fiction, poetry, personal essay, memoir, and hybrid forms.
Tension feels tangible to a reader, an active experience. But from a craft perspective, tension is often a function of restraint, palpable from what is withheld, delayed or left unresolved. Why do some stories feel urgent even in stillness while others fall flat despite dramatic events? Our impulse to resolve tension often comes from a deeply human instinct to seek coherence and moral clarity, but resisting that instinct creates compelling narratives. When we let characters misbehave or allow ambiguity in their actions, we pull readers closer to them.
This course examines tension as a narrative force. We’ll consider how writers can counter the impulse to resolve too quickly, to justify wrongful acts or to redeem a character’s behavior. By looking at ways to sustain tension without escalation into spectacle, we’ll experiment with evoking it in the ordinary and the unspoken. The class will combine close reading, craft reflection and writing prompts to practice distinct approaches to writing tension. This course is designed for writers working in fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid forms who are interested in deepening the psychological and structural complexity of their work. Ultimately, tension is what compels the reader to turn the page.
In this generative writing workshop, ecologist and poet Anne Marie Wells will introduce participants to some of today's eco-poets and essayists and guide participants through a series of writing prompts that will use the outdoors and personal experience as inspiration for creative expression. No writing experience is necessary to participate.
Mollie Williamson attended Saint Mary's College of California double majoring in Art History and Women's Studies in 2013. She then received her Master's in Women's Studies from the University of Alabama in 2014. Mollie currently lives in the Bay Area of California and works at a high school library while also following her dream of becoming a writer.
