Three Things

Suzanne Richardson takes three seemingly unrelated things and writes them towards one another, a practice that’s central to creative nonfiction and essay.

Feel free to play along and write the same three things towards one another. Watch for each month’s three things to be announced on Twitter. If you’d like to suggest topics, images, ideas, or objects for our writer to bind together through writing, email them to suzanneroserich@gmail.com. She’s up for the challenge.

Suzanne Richardson 6/6/24 Suzanne Richardson 6/6/24

Thrones + Slugs + MORE

Our friendship was just beginning. Things were about to deepen, I could feel it. When her text came through about karaoke I’d justified it. I’ll see everyone another time. I didn’t know it then, but there wouldn’t be another time with him, and there was also no more time to see Gauraa.

Suzanne Richardson 6/24/22 Suzanne Richardson 6/24/22

Backwards + Stars + Owls

The men, the snake, the powder; the black tutu, the wedding veil, the empty bar; me, and her, and how we all came together in those few hours under the stars.

Suzanne Richardson 4/20/22 Suzanne Richardson 4/20/22

Cuckoo Clocks + Board Games + Landline Phones

Right before they broke up, his girlfriend visited from Canada and hung a giant ornate white cuckoo clock in his TV room. It was like some last flare signal to me that she was there, and I should stay away.

Suzanne Richardson 12/29/21 Suzanne Richardson 12/29/21

Rivers + Oceans + Rain

It’s a risk to live, so risky, to survive we must be imperfect, though we are humiliated by our imperfections.

Suzanne Richardson 10/13/21 Suzanne Richardson 10/13/21

Scorpions + Roses + Goodbyes

I am the villain of my own life, always digging for precious resources, expanding, exploding, paving crude paths over myself. Burying my past self in shallow graves after bulleting her.

Suzanne Richardson 6/30/21 Suzanne Richardson 6/30/21

Trains + Fire + Pills

In June, I’m not feeling well but I plant seeds and bulbs anyway. What I mean to say is, I plant seeds though I’m not confident in my ability to grow them. I watch for signs of growth despite feeling stuck.

Suzanne Richardson 5/5/21 Suzanne Richardson 5/5/21

Cake + Mirror + Squirrels

A wave is the movement of a medium back and forth. If this is true, then the ocean of garbage behind my house is the medium that transfers the energy of my city to me.

Suzanne Richardson 3/31/21 Suzanne Richardson 3/31/21

Feet + Gummy Candy + Black Hair Dye

The more I own my own stories, the more people ask me to lie. The more people want me to say it’s fiction.

Suzanne Richardson 2/24/21 Suzanne Richardson 2/24/21

Double Yolks + Jersey Shore + Toxicity

Some sources say double-yolks are a sign of twin births or pregnancy. Some sources say double-yolks are a symbol of good luck. Some sources say double-yolks are a sign of death, and death that’s close. One source claimed double-yolked eggs were a sign the egg was removed from a coop in the dark and that’s very bad luck.

Suzanne Richardson 1/12/21 Suzanne Richardson 1/12/21

Bian Lian + “Sherry Baby” by the Four Seasons + Skeletons

Physiognomy is cropping up again. The junk science of reading faces for personality traits. Face as honesty, face as a map to the “true” self. Charts and graphs on the internet reveal the secrets of a person from the arch of their eyebrow, to the fattest part of their lips. If we have one face, we have one self, and the face becomes the route to the one true being.

Suzanne Richardson 11/18/20 Suzanne Richardson 11/18/20

Dreams + Ichabod Crane + Candlesticks

I spent 119 days alone this spring without touching another person. In deep isolation I felt things. Fear and paranoia braided my hair. Despair in many shapes interlocking and shifting. What really makes life worth living? If I can’t be with people, how do I know who I am? I looked forward to dreaming, to entering a different space, one that might be less fraught.