Brooke Randel

Writer and editor in Chicago.

Chicago, IL, United States

Selected work (7 publications)

Jewish Fiction, 2021

Mallory and the HologramMallory has better places to be. It’s not true—she’s an eighth grader with exactly nowhere to go—but it’s what she keeps thinking, what she wishes for herself. At least she got her dad to back out of being a field trip chaperone.

Pithead Chapel, 2022

Offers My Grandma Has Made Me1. To pierce my ears. All she needs is a needle, ice cube and potato. I imagine it goes ice cube first, then needle, then potato. I say no. 2. To give me money. Do I need money? There’s a twenty-dollar bill in her purse.

creative nonfiction

The Nasiona, 2020

On Writing My Grandma’s Story & Reading It Back to HerIt takes two trains to get to my grandma’s place, a senior center with a warm-water pool and bingo twice a week. When I arrive, my grandma’s face lights up as if it’s been years, as if I hadn’t called the day before to say I was coming.

creative nonfiction

Hypertext Magazine, 2021

The Search for My Grandma's Fourteenth SummerListening is an act greater than not talking, which is itself a great act. In my grandma’s apartment, I pressed my lips together and took in her world (pillboxes and photos albums, pickle jars turned soup containers) and tried to forget my own

creative nonfiction

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