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Pink Mushroom Gills

Creative
Non-Fiction

“Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of a tightrope walk: it must be true, but it must also be artful.”

                                                                                 - Lee Gutkind

Publications

Folio Literary Journal

March 2026

Explores how ordinary, secondhand objects can reveal unexpected stories and personal truths.

The Rook Academic Journal

June 2024

Traces an intimate journey through teenage pregnancy and life inside an abusive family, revealing fear, resilience, and vulnerability with unflinching honesty and grit.

Table//FEAST 

Forthcoming June 2026

This food memoir essay captures the humor and wonder of baking while revealing deeper truths about childhood and longing.

Is a raw, unflinching braided essay that confronts sexual assault in Libby, MT, blending personal narrative with research to illuminate trauma and resilience.

Residue

Traces the accumulation of shame, through jealousy, sexual exploration, and projection, braiding personal narrative and research to examine how unspoken harm lingers and reshapes identity.

Call me Chaos

Traces a reckoning with disorder and identity, as the persona confronts chaos as both a survival mechanism and a self-made mythology.

Manastash Student-Led Literary Journal of CWU

June 28, 2026

Offers a cultural critique of toxic tabloid media, examining how women’s bodies are surveilled, shamed, and distorted, and how those narratives shape self-worth and identity.

Regenerate

Braids personal reflection with geology and ecology, exploring bodily regeneration through Helena’s lake systems, tree root networks, and insect life to consider how healing occurs beneath the surface.

Columbia Journal July 19 2026

The Mother Plant uses the resilience and propagation of plants as a living metaphor for survivors of childhood abuse, tracing how adaptation, fragmentation, and regrowth become strategies for survival.

Recovery: Inheritance of an Unhinged Mother

Examines the inherited damage of having an unhinged, toxic mother, tracing how women carry, resist, and recover from the emotional legacies of their childhoods. Through intimate reflection and collective insight, it explores recovery not as erasure, but as the conscious re-shaping of what was passed down.

Eternal Echos

Moves through the fleeting moments of motherhood—the firsts and lasts that arrive quietly and pass just as quickly—revealing how time, memory, and love echo long after the moment itself is gone.

My Mother Taught Me to Pray

A braided essay moving through three stages of life, tracing how faith, family, and identity shift over time. By weaving memory, belief, and inheritance, it examines how religion shapes—and is reshaped by—the evolving relationship.

Close-Up Mushrooms

If my work resonates with you, or if you’d like to connect about writing, editing, or creative collaboration, I welcome your message. Use the contact form below to reach out. My CV is available upon request for professional inquiries.

Let's chat!
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© 2026 by Savannah Cottingham. Powered and secured by Wix 

 

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