Home: A Broken Pantoum

A poem about home.

The Gateway Arch, June 27, 2026. Photo by Derek L. Zboran. You know her: immediate love,insists on paying for dinner.Chicago hot dogs like back home —back home is gone. She insists on paying for dinner.The end of the week is here.Back home is gone.We say goodbye. The end of the week is here.Her face is …

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10 Years Down the Line…

Researchers have found that low positive well-being in the present can set the stage for depression up to 10 years later (Joseph & Wood, 2010). This is one of many reasons why it matters to cultivate well-being as a lifestyle choice! This does not mean forcing yourself to be “fake happy.” It means building a …

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Write Your Book: Self-Publishing Secrets from Dr. Richard Nongard

Would you like to write a book? Join me in an enlightening conversation with Dr. Richard Nongard as he shares his game-changing insights on writing, publishing, and taking action to find your creative voice. TRANSCRIPT: Derek Zboran: Derek here. And I’m super excited that I get to talk to Dr. Richard Nongard. Richard has written …

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What Writers Can Learn from The Gift of the Magi

Writer: O. Henry Published: The New York Sunday World Date: 12/10/1905 One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of …

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Writer Files: How I Wrote “Last Good Place”

In 1974, actress and model Raquel Welch posed for a series of glamorous pinup photographs on the Côte d’Azur. In one image, she sits in a rough stone window opening, framed by its hard edges. The relaxed lines of her pose, the rumpled fabric, and the loose fall of her hair stand in sharp contrast …

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Last Good Place

A space traveler searches an ancient castle for the lost key to paradise, only to find a mysterious woman with every reason to stop him. The castle shouldn’t still be standing. Yet here it was. Windows clean. And what’s more, a light burning on the second level that had not been there yesterday. Lexington circled …

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