Katie Venit

  • Watermelon and Seeds

    I’m taking creative writing lessons with my six year old. Every day, we watch Ms. Lisa – a teacher who sounds like maybe she’s from Brooklyn. We give a thumbs up when we agree with something. The videos are pre-recorded, but Ms. Lisa says she can see a lot of thumbs up, and we feel…

  • To Wish and Wish and Wish Properly

    To Wish and Wish and Wish Properly

    The mulberry bushes stretch far up a hill, and we eat all the berries, like a mama bear and two cubs storing sunshine for the long winter. The seeds crunch between our teeth like bones as juice drips from our chins and hands. We are sticky, and we like it. “Mama,” my son says between…

  • Portrait of a Woman as a Young Mother

    Portrait of a Woman as a Young Mother

    Appeared in August 2019, The Cabinet of Heed In the framed photo, a woman in profile—eyes smudged with dark circles, shoulder adorned with an epaulette of spit-up—hugs a newborn tight and high on her chest, resting her cheek on his head. The baby’s eyelids look like closed pistachios. His ears match the monkey’s on his…

  • Raising Children Like Dough

    Raising Children Like Dough

    Dining out as a family has been challenging ever since my oldest began walking and almost Hansel and Greteled himself into a pizza oven at Foster’s Cheese Haus. We’ve gone to a few places here and there, it’s always ended badly. (Burrachos, I’ll say it again: I’m so sorry.) Desperation can make you do funny…