HeyJaredLisainparadise
Writer. Storykeeper. Death doula.I am a life reviewer. I tell stories, family histories, and the quiet moments in between—the kind that stick in your chest. My work lives at the intersection of memory and meaning.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 8
- Latest publication
- Sep 15, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest issues
This Is the Digging (opens the original)
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Every morning she puts her hands into the earth — not the garden earth, not the generous dark that promises tomatoes, lavender, some green thing willing to rise and be forgiven, but the narrower earth, the earth already measured, already named for her, beside the cell that is not yet, but will be, the last small country she is given.This is the digging.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dwRp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A
The Saint of the Slums (opens the original)
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In the cathedral, Kitty Wilkinson is all heavy glass.Light passes through her the way it passes throughanything that has stopped fighting easily, forgivingly,turning her apron gold, her sleeves blue,her face the color of an indecisive sun.They have set her among noble women here,rooted in glass and reverence,her hands folded the way hands are foldedwhen no one remembers what they once held.Look at them.Palm laid neatly against palm,fingers gathered into their little architecture of prayer,each k
This ChatGPT Story Belongs to Dave (opens the original)
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I work weekends at an independent living community, where among the bingo games, bus rides and assorted organized chaos, I teach a creative writing class. Dave is my best student. He is also, objectively, my most complicated one. A stroke left him with aphasia and only about twenty-five spoken words, but somehow this man with very few words has more stories than almost anyone I’ve met.Week after week, we began finding ways to get them out of him. At the same time, I was practicing my work as a d
Evolution (opens the original)
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A sunflower begins the morningwith the quiet work of opening.Not all at once. Petal by petalit loosens itself into the day,until there it isyellow, extravagant,almost unbearably beautiful,its whole facegiven over to the light.And then begins the harder work:the turning. All day it carries its own becoming,the great golden head growing heavierwith everything it has madePetal, pollen, seed,the accumulating weightof having b
Mahjong Afternoons (opens the original)
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It is the tablescape that gets me first.The scarf laid diagonally,as if we are expecting someone important.The mat.The small lamp making its private circle of light.The ridiculous little curiochosen especially for the dice,because apparently even chancedeserves a beautiful place to wait.But it is the tiles that get me.The clink of them.That small, hard musicas they tumble together.The thickness in the hand.The surprising weight.As if each one is heavy enoughto hold an en
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