By Megan Stielstra

Megan Stielstra is the author of Once I Was Cool . Her work appears in the Best American Essays , New York Times , Poets & Writers , The Rumpus , and elsewhere, and her next collection, COME HERE FEAR , is forthcoming from Harper Perennial.

  1. To Build Up and Takeaway From

    By Megan Stielstra

    in The Butter

    Spin My sophomore year in college, I attended a study-abroad program in a tiny cobblestone city in Tuscany that was so beautiful I thought it was pretend. The streets were narrow and lined with churches and cathedrals and museums; every ceiling was painted with stories; every wall molded into gargoyles and cherubs. At its center was a football field-sized square called Piazza del Campo where everyone met up, drank in the culture, and in my…

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