Kristen Gunn hails from Houston, TX, where she spent her days escaping the heat by sitting under the live oaks, swimming in both chlorinated and salt-water pools, and frequenting the Museum of Natural Science. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Religious Studies and Linguistics and currently resides in Dallas, TX, where she mostly reads books in her hammock and enjoys the splendor of other human beings while waiting for apple pie to come out of the oven or dancing to live banjo music.
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The Extreme Selfie as an Art Form
I didn’t ask to become inane; it just happened one day while I was driving down the highway, trying to take a selfie while eating a burrito. (This was to stand in as a more interesting version of the “on my way” text.) Mercifully, the rice spilled on my dress, I realized what I was […]
Why Richard Rodriguez and I Keep Taking Our “Inner Atheists” to Church
Maybe novelty is the currency of the blogosphere—but then again, maybe not. Sometimes the brightest-shining gems come out of an old closet at your grandparents’ house (or in this case, an old box of $1 books at a library sale). It may be old (we’re talking last decade—you know, back when Pluto was a planet […]
Penny & Sparrow on Fleeing a Lover
There is, in fact, no BuzzFeed quiz for “Which Son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son Are You?”—and if there were, I’m not sure people would take it. As the story goes, a decently well-off man has two not-that-decent sons. The younger, wild and fugitive, asks his father for an advance on his inheritance. […]
Rubbing the Rabbit’s Foot: a Chronicle of Failure (with Free Quotes from Interesting People)
I did everything I could to avoid posting something this week. I slowly and meticulously inventoried all our books, even alphabetized them. I spent an afternoon hiding in the attic (read: furnace in the sky), then prolongedly squawked about how hot it was. I made a lot of pour-over coffees. I initiated long conversations about any- […]
“You Do Not Have to Be Good” and Other Lines That Could Save a Life
When the box spring squeals at four in the morning and jolts me into wakefulness—or when the sleeping pill wears off too early and I am dragged just so slowly by life’s tide back onto the shore of Day—I like to pretend God (or the universe, if it’s too early to say God) is trying […]
Death in a Penthouse Apartment
About two months ago, my five housemates and I began to notice a strange, persistent odor emanating from the left bathroom of our “penthouse” (read: dingy attic) apartment. For close to a week no one said anything, all suspecting each other of some unmentionable mishap we couldn’t prove. Of course, we ourselves couldn’t be the […]