Su Cummings

Su Cummings is a Seattle-based writer and visual artist. Her essays have been published in Ground Zero, a quarterly of The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, and on her creative sites including sucummings.com, boldtimer.com (“How to grow, while growing older”) and traverse.us.com, where she charted fourteen months exploring the country. She studied creative non-fiction at Hugo House, Seattle’s respected “place for writers,” and holds a BFA from Washington State University. She is currently writing Retracing Grace, a memoir.

A Father’s Arms

The thermonuclear bomb and I practically share a birthday—that was the first hydrogen fusion device with the power of 800 Hiroshima bombs. They called it the superbomb, the “city killer.” Physicist Enrico Fermi said its “practical effect is almost one of genocide.” I always knew the fear-begotten arms race and I grew up together.