Category: Women’s Issues + Awareness

Zombie Nation

Jacqueline Cioffa

I have met too many friends and foes that say they don’t care about politics. They don’t care about equality, racism, mental illness, sexual harassment, and gun violence shrugging their shoulders brushing off the uncomfortable, the taboo. It’s not happening to me. That’s the poor man’s excuse, cowardice is plain 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.

Rebel Yell

Julie Anderson

Wordsmiths, our thoughts will become fingerprints that will fly on sound waves, generation after generation Words, the ones so artfully placed will swiftly carry the culpable away We are bound to the exploration of human truth, the tempest of rolling angst Wordsmiths, fashion your eternal robes of literature with precious Read more

Julie Anderson

Julie Anderson is the Creator and Publisher of Feminine Collective. Julie was inspired to create this safe place for women to share their secrets, desires, triumphs and pain as the antithesis of what mainstream media offers women today. In her column Pursuit of Perfection, she explores the importance of rectifying the balance of inner and outer beauty through essays, poems and articles on self-esteem, shame, family, and self- acceptance.

#InStarbucksWhileBlack

Dori Owen

Enough. Just enough. Last week’s news of two African American men being arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks for the heinous crime of waiting for friends is bringing race, bias, and #BlackLivesMatter to a sickening new low. If you haven’t heard the story, this is what happened. A zealous Starbucks manager Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

Falling Out

Alice Barstow

Will I stop disappearing if I get Botox, or whiten my teeth, or thicken my thinning hair with extensions? Will I stop disappearing if I highlight under my eyes or draw in my eyebrows? What if I strap on tights, a push-up bra and high heels? Will I stop disappearing Read more

Alice Barstow

Alice has had a handful of careers and pursuits over the years with writing being a constant friend throughout all journeys, and the place that feels the most at home. Aside from articles and columns published on local news outlets, her work also appears in the anthology "This One Has No Name"- a collection of works by a small group of writers she happily meets and writes with monthly. Alice resides in a hilly New England town mothering two fascinating daughters, an overly excitable dog, and a moody cat, alongside her thankfully very patient husband.

LET’S GIVE DRUG DEALERS THE DEATH PENALTY

Dori Owen

Well, let’s not. Because actually we can’t. I am not outspoken about all things Trump. Everything is so ridiculous to me that my only thoughts are about guessing when the nightmare will end. All of you people who have ever made fun of government policy wonks—don’t you wish they were Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

Maybe It Wasn’t My Fault

Reagan Brooks

Lacey could tell something was off. “What’s wrong, Mom?” “Nothing, Honey. But we need to talk – all of us.” Her mother meant all of “the girls” She looked at her three daughters warily. “Something’s happened, and I don’t know how to tell you.” “What happened? Are grandma and grandpa Read more

Reagan Brooks

Reagan Brooks is a college student from Texas. She had a difficult upbringing and finds writing her experiences helpful for her healing process. She hopes her story can help others and bring peace to those that need it.

Learning to Thrive

Dana Boyer

In July 2014, in Okinawa, Japan, I got pregnant with our second boy. Fresh off a miscarriage and two months before we were due to move eastward across the Pacific, this little one was anything but planned. I know the trend today is to say ‘We are pregnant’, emphasizing the Read more

Dana Boyer

Since graduating with an MA in Creative Writing form the University of Nebraska, Dana Boyer has been writing and traveling her way around the world. Her work appears in The Tishman Review, A Clean, Well Lighted Place and the anthology My Body, My Words. She currently lives in Florida with her husband and two sons.

Blind Ambition

Ruth Edgett

If Tina wasn’t so damn hard, I probably wouldn’t be doing this, but even a dog gets tired of being kicked after a while. In a year and a half, I’ll be eighteen anyway, so cutting out early’s no big whoop. Wonder if she even knows I’m gone. The manager Read more

Ruth Edgett

Ruth Edgett is the author of "A Watch in the Night: The story of Nova Scotia's last light keeping family"(Nimbus, 2007) which is the story of her mother's family and their life as light keepers on a tiny island inn St.Georges Bay. Ruth's fiction and non-fiction are inspired by the people and places of Atlantic Canada. Born and raised on Prince Edward Island, Ruth now lives and writes in Southern Ontario.