Days of Leaving, by Amy L. Bernstein

Prose, chapbook, 44 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

DAYS OF LEAVING is a gentle meditation on loneliness and the difficulty of living up to E.M. Forster’s dictum to “only connect” one’s inner and outer lives and live as fully as possible. We meet four individuals whose lives intersect in complex ways across decades—and yet someone is always leaving, moving on, pushing past regrets in search of the better life that surely awaits.

We meet Ben, a wildly ambitious dreamer with a tentative hold on reality, and the love of his life, Callie, never able to shake the abandonment issues that haunted her childhood. Together, they love, laugh, dance, and plan for a future that never arrives. Callie ends up with Jon, a disillusioned banker; together, they have a daughter, Lucy, who will grow up to claim a birthright as Phoenix, a trans-male, long after Jon has walked out on the family he believes is suffocating him.

This miniature novella brings readers into four emotionally rich lives through a series of episodically shifting points of view, emails, letters, and found documents. The story raises questions about whether love truly lasts—and whether love is ever enough to keep someone close.

Amy L. Bernstein writes stories that let readers feel by making them think. She is the award-winning author of seven books, including, most recently, Tent City, a family saga about the decline of the American Dream; and Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration, which is a popular source of encouragement for all self-doubting creatives. Amy brings a compassionate and insightful voice to the challenges and joys of the artistic process at writers’ conferences around the U.S. A former journalist in print and public radio, as well as a produced playwright, Amy also runs a book coaching business, helping nonfiction authors craft compelling book proposals. Amy is a past recipient of a Rubys Artist Grant, an Onassis Foundation grant, and multiple Maryland Humanities grants, among others. In 2025, she became a Pushcart-nominated poet.