Nina McConigley: How a nightlight illuminates the way

In being a parent and being a writer, there is no routine, no one way of doing things that is right; some things that we must do to get the work done are, in fact, weird.

The first thing I learn in our newborn-care workshop is that babies like the dark. Their room should be so dark that you can’t see your hand in front of your face, the teacher instructs. She tells us not to worry, they aren’t scared. They don’t know a fear of the dark yet; that will happen later. And she is right: It is when my daughter is two that she suddenly says, “Too dark!” after we turn out the light. She thinks there is something under the bed, in the closet. I make a show of checking everything—revealing that there is nothing there. Finally, to stop her tears, I grab the lamp off my writing desk and plug it in, the bright light shining to show her there are no monsters.

When I first started writing, I did not worry about the dark. I would come into my MFA workshop with all kinds of stories—This week I want to try out a “we” point of view! Here’s a whole story narrated by a horse! I was fearless. After graduation I worked as a waitress and then later under a crushing course load as an adjunct. My writing slowed. And then I became a parent. Long weekends and nights that I would spend reading or thinking were gone. I tried to set an alarm for 5 AM, to write before everyone got up. But I was so tired. In the dark I pressed Snooze. I chose sleep before the repetition of the day began. Before laundry and playdates and feedings. My distress about my writing practice (or lack of it) grew slowly just as my daughter grew.

Because I was tired I forgot to buy my daughter a nightlight. But the desk lamp was too bright. A nightlight is not meant to be illuminating. It’s a small lamp that provides only dim light. Enough so you can see the outline of the bed, the curve of a dresser. So you don’t hurt yourself. It is a light that is meant to burn through the night, not going out. It’s steadfast and meant to calm your fears. You don’t need it to see; you need it to feel safe.

In digging through a box in the basement I find an old plastic Christmas tree. One I had in a past apartment, long before I had children or was married. Back when I would write for hours uninterrupted. My three-year-old daughter sees it and claps her hands in glee: “Light! My light!” I take it up to her room and plug it in, and it sits there year-round. Through all the seasons. To her it is the perfect nightlight—and to me it is just enough to illuminate the piles of books, her basket of stuffies. I wince a little that in mid-July, a Christmas tree is, let’s face it, weird. But then I am reminded that perfect doesn’t exist, and besides, it casts the ideal amount of light.

In being a parent and being a writer, there is no routine, no one way of doing things that is right; some things that we must do to get the work done are, in fact, weird. Many things bring the light. Some bring just enough light that you are no longer afraid. The shadowy light that says, Don’t be scared, write it! Even in the most awkward of circumstances, even in light that is meant for something else, even in a light in which you can’t see your hand in front of your face, you have to write what you can. You may not be able to see fully—but you know the outline of the thing is there. It is a light to say: Don’t fear—there is just enough light here to guide you, to keep you going. And it burns throughout the night, keeping the monsters at bay.

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Nina McConigley is the author of the story collection Cowboys and East Indians, which won the PEN Open Book Award and a High Plains Book Award. She was born in Singapore and grew up in Wyoming. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, an MA in English from the University of Wyoming, and a BA in Literature from Saint Olaf College. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Orion, Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, American Short Fiction, and The Asian American Literary Review,among others. Her play, Cowboys and East Indians, was commissioned by the Denver Center for Performing Arts and had a staged reading at the Colorado New Play Summit in 2024.

After many years on the faculty at University of Wyoming, she now teaches at Colorado State University as well as the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. She has two books forthcoming: her novel How to Commit A Postcolonial Murder from Pantheon Books in January 2026 and her essay collection with Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction from the University of Georgia Press.

“The Nightlight” was originally published in Poets & Writers magazine (Jan./Feb. 2025).