Emily Ver Steeg

Emily Ver Steeg grew up outside Atlanta, GA and now lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she teaches writing for immigrant and international students. She received her MFA from The Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s University.

An Excerpt from “The Hole”

Wilford was digging a hole. Buckley’d been sipping coffee and scrolling social media when he noticed his old neighbor, a shovel slung over his stooping shoulder, hobbling to the edge of his property where the bermuda was shored up by a retaining wall to stop it slumping into the marsh below.

“Jen,” Buckley said. “What the hell’s he doing?”

Good Day Atlanta cut to commercial and Jennifer peeped over the top of her chair to see what Buckley was agitated about now.

“Gardening,” she said, and turned back.

“With that giant thing?” he said, meaning the shovel.

Wilford lifted the inappropriately sized shovel high as he could, which wasn’t very, and heaved it down. He couldn’t have made more than a dent. Buckley abandoned his coffee and phone and pressed his nose right up against the kitchen window to get a better look. Wilford lifted and heaved again, used his foot to further plunge the shovel into the soil, and levered up a small clump of red clay.

“He’s, what, seventy-five? Eighty?” Buckley’s breath fogged up the glass and he wiped it with his sleeve.

Read more of Emily’s work in Solum Journal Winter 2022.