Category: Women’s Issues + Awareness

Lessons

Melanie Jones

In the beginning, you will feel like you’ve landed in a world completely different to anything you have ever known or imagined, almost as though a tornado struck and whisked you off to another land. As you begin this journey you will feel like a modern-day princess. You will be Read more

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones has embraced writing as a way to heals and as a way to help empower and inspire women of all ages. Hers is a journey that has been a blessing; full of heart ache and heart-warming experiences. She believes that all women need to listen their inner voice and to trust their instincts.

My Body, My Choice

Jacqueline Cioffa

Dear God, I haven’t been talking to you much. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I lost my faith for a long while. I lost myself, too. I forgot I was your perfect creation. I forgot the privilege it is to be female. I forgot I was able to Read more

Jacqueline Cioffa

A retired, international model, and celebrity makeup artist. Co-Author of Model Citi Zen, the guide. Founder of http://modelcitizenmakeup.blogspot.com/. Author of numerous prose pieces in various literary magazines. Most recently published in Little Episodes Brainstorms the anthology, among esteemed artists Sadie Frost, Melvin Burgess and Todd Swift.

MY MOTHER’S SCARVES

Anne Leigh Parrish

Blue paisley when she feels humble Green polka dots when the beauty parlor is closed Stars and stripes for the Fourth Red and green for Yuletide Magenta for seducing the department chair Navy blue for telling my father it never happened Pink and yellow for the parent-teacher conference Beige to Read more

Anne Leigh Parrish

Award-winning writer Anne Leigh Parrish’s next novel, an open door, will be published in October 2022 by Unsolicited Press. Recent titles from Unsolicited Press are the moon won’t be dared, a poetry collection, October 2021, and a winter night, a novel, released in March 2021. She is the author of seven other books. She has recently ventured into the art of photography and lives in the South Sound Region of Washington State. Find her online at her website, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Instagram, Linked In, and Goodreads.

Why Female Fireflies Fake Death

Laure Van Rensburg

She walks to the deli to get some lunch. She will get catcalled, but she’ll pretend she hasn’t heard it. Her pace and heartbeat will increase with every additional comment, the unwanted attention crawling up her legs like an invisible hand. She’ll want to say something, but she’ll remember the Read more

Laure Van Rensburg

Laure Van Rensburg is a French writer living in the UK. Her short stories can be found in online magazines including Across The Margin, Ellipsis Zine, The Fiction Pool, Barren Magazine, Storgy and Reflex Fiction. She has been longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award and twice shortlisted for TSS Publishing Quarterly Flash Competitions.

It’s All My Fault

Judith Staff

They say “the body remembers.” Somewhere in my mind, the intrusive sound of the soles of men’s sensible shoes slapping onto the shiny floors throughout the corridors still haunts me now and then. Sitting on a shelf labeled “incongruity,” the sudden thunder of racing footsteps filling the hushed, echoey hallways Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

A Poem for International Women’s Day

Z. M. Wise

Lilith, goddess guardian, first one to raise arms and plant feet downward. Enheduanna, I pay tribute to you. Golden signatures trickle down on miscellaneous temple hymns in honor of their presence. No time but now to salvage remains, original calligraphy to support descendants. Sappho, you underrated Greek beauty, as ancient Read more

Z. M. Wise

Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native from Chicago, poet, essayist, occasional playwright, seldom screenwriter, co-editor and arts activist, writing since his first steps as a child. He is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press https://transcendentzeropress.org/ , an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum. He is the author of seven books and chapbooks of published poetry and a play, including: Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock! (MavLit Press, 2013); The Wandering Poet (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014); Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems (Weasel Press, 2015); Cuentos de Amor (Red Ferret Press, 2015); Kosmish and the Horned Ones (Weasel Press, 2018); Illinois Infinitarium (Cherry House Press, 2020); and The Nightmare Mask (TBD). His debut play, Bottles of Emerald for the Demon Queen (Transcendent Zero Press, 2019), was published in late December of 2019. His most recent chapbook of poetry, the mini-epic known as The Nightmare Mask, is searching for a brand new home. Other than these books, his poems, lyrics, essays, and book reviews have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading.

12 Everyday Sexist & Misogynistic Things That Men Need To Stop Doing

John Michael Antonio

In 2012, writer and activist Laura Bates founded her groundbreaking website The Everyday Sexism Project with the distinct purpose of providing a place where women from all walks of life could share and relate their daily experiences with normalised sexism and misogyny. The project has been an enormous success and Read more

John Michael Antonio

John Michael Antonio is a freelance writer, photographer, poet and screenwriter. He claims his Midwestern roots while at the same time admitting his incurable and insatiable love and addiction for all things New York City. He has been the husband to his wife, the love of his life, for almost thirty years and is a father of three wonderful children. He is an unapologetic male feminist as well as a passionate lover of fashion, art, movies and music from all eras and genres. An endless dreamer, John Michael is also an avid historian, ex-punk rocker and a legendary Internet surfer who sleeps, on average, about four hours a day. His work has also been featured on The Good Men Project.

Not 1937 but 1972

Elisabeth Horan

For Olds… for Bruck We aren’t shaped things like our moms’ hairdos So round so golden so smooth like this guy’s ego He says better not have that cheeseburger better not have that chocolate malted — And your thighs chafe like hers… so what — so, skinny is Holocaust rated. Read more

Elisabeth Horan

Elisabeth Horan is a poet mother student lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She writes to survive and survives to write - We are all battling something. Let's support each other. Elisabeth enjoys riding horses and caring for her cats, chickens, goats and children (not necessarily in that order). She teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.