Melissa Stoeltje

Dec 25, 2023 | sanantonioreport.org | Melissa Stoeltje

Whenever my husband takes our two bigger dogs Sophie and Rocky out for a walk, I always sort of hold my breath until they safely return. Our dogs are strong and healthy, Mark’s a big guy and he carries a retractable police baton in his pocket whenever the three of them go traipsing around our modest, near-Westside neighborhood. But our area, located within a high-poverty zip code, is blighted by loose dogs, and on several occasions Mark and our mutts have been menaced by out-of-control canines.

Dec 11, 2023 | sanantonioreport.org | Melissa Stoeltje

Many families have holiday traditions, and one of ours is dragging my mother’s Christmas tree out of the shed in our backyard. It stays there all year (covered in a large black plastic garbage bag) until the Friday after Thanksgiving, when my husband, Mark, and I delicately transport it across the lawn, careful to not jiggle loose any of the ornaments that have hung on its limbs for the previous 365 days.

Nov 13, 2023 | sanantonioreport.org | Melissa Stoeltje

When Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that granted women the constitutional right to abortion, was overturned in 2022, opponents of the procedure celebrated across the land. At long last, the dream of outlawing abortion in many if not most places by returning the decision to the states had been realized. Finally, women would be required to carry their pregnancies to term, whether they wanted to or not. But new data suggests that abortion foes may have celebrated a bit prematurely.

Oct 30, 2023 | sanantonioreport.org | Melissa Stoeltje

Last summer, as a way to escape the scorching temperatures, my husband and I got into the habit of walking around area malls to get some exercise while hopefully avoiding heatstroke. (Yes, we’re those people.)Toward the end of September, Halloween decorations started going up. In the display windows of one store, in a mall I won’t name, we walked by oversized posters depicting kids in the usual trick-or-treat attire: skeleton, ninja turtle, Wednesday Addams.

Oct 16, 2023 | sanantonioreport.org | Melissa Stoeltje

Nathan Hill’s extraordinary new novel Wellness is many things: a satire of the self-care movement and dubious behavioral sciences research; a send-up of gentrification and helicopter parenting; and a trenchant exploration of how childhood trauma can repeat itself in adult relationships, specifically in the beleaguered marriage of Jack and Elizabeth Baker, the book’s central characters.