Cassie McClure

1 week ago | arcamax.com | Cassie McClure

For the first story I ever had published in a paper, I was almost run over by a mail truck. I'll tell you, the driver was none too pleased by a faux reporter jumping in front of his hood for a quote. I don't blame him. But here I am, more than 20 years later, writing for the same paper. But I should back up. I spent my first year in college at a technical school, semi-enchanted by the idea of working with computers in some fashion.

2 weeks ago | arcamax.com | Cassie McClure

Sometimes a reply has to stew. There's the meat of an argument and the vegetables of barbs that soften as the pot simmers over the flames of anger. The flavors shift with time. What first tasted like an insult might mellow into something, even just the imagined context I build for myself of the person on the other side of the screen, like someone scared of change or someone just having a bad day. And still, I sit with my hands above the keyboard, wondering what to serve back to the constituent.

3 weeks ago | creators.com | Cassie McClure

I had a frilly pink dress in second grade that I only wore a handful of times. There are some photos of me striking some sharp poses in our backyard, but after I outgrew that dress, I didn't follow up with any similarly typical frilly costumes of girlhood. As I grew, I went with comfort over style for a long time — and some might say even to this day. My much more stylish daughter would likely say this, marveling when, on rare occasions, I float out of the house in a dress.

3 weeks ago | arcamax.com | Cassie McClure

I had a frilly pink dress in second grade that I only wore a handful of times. There are some photos of me striking some sharp poses in our backyard, but after I outgrew that dress, I didn't follow up with any similarly typical frilly costumes of girlhood. As I grew, I went with comfort over style for a long time -- and some might say even to this day. My much more stylish daughter would likely say this, marveling when, on rare occasions, I float out of the house in a dress.

4 weeks ago | creators.com | Cassie McClure

Starting at about second grade, when the novelty of reading about a family of bears started to wear off, I inhaled ghost stories. One of my favorites was "Wait Till Helen Comes" by Mary Downing Hahn. It was about dead kids, dead parents, and, the cherry on top of a trauma sundae, navigating a blended family. I was lucky as a child. I didn't know death. I had both of my parents. While I was infinitely curious about siblings, I suspected that there were advantages to being an only child.