Category: Women’s Issues + Awareness

Girl Fight

Erin Murphy

Last week, I sat alone at the bar in a family-friendly local pizza place. Only two miles away from where I live, this restaurant appeals to me for other reasons, like its theme. It is “galactic,’ with the inside of the building decorated with elaborate otherworldly creations. Paper mache planets Read more

Erin Murphy

Erin Murphy works as a waitress at a historical hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. Since she can remember, she has been shining her flashlight at the moon. The beautiful complexity of human connection is what interests Erin most. But she also enjoys dancing and playing darts.

BODY JUSTICE 1977

Katherine West

The university doctor examined me. Then all of his students examined me. “As you can see,” he explained, “the uterus is tipped, making bringing a fetus to term unlikely.” After I had dressed and sitting in his office we had a conversation. “The risk of miscarriage is high.” “I’ve already Read more

Katherine West

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective and Southwest Word Fiesta. New Verse News nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.

a list of things that are yellow

Anne Leigh Parrish

sunlight egg yolk daffodils a rare diamond amber anything not alive our house a sickly skin tone bruises the car you owned when we met butter lemons fallen leaves pineapples the tie you tried to strangle me with the straw in the ice water they gave me to drink at 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.

Bleeding by the Bayou: A Story of Cycles

Erin Murphy

I’m in the bathtub at Marie Laveaux’s Annex in New Orleans and I’m about to reach orgasmic bliss. Finally. After all of these years searching for ways to feel connected to the source of my sexual energy, it only makes sense that I am on the verge of explosion, inside Read more

Erin Murphy

Erin Murphy works as a waitress at a historical hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. Since she can remember, she has been shining her flashlight at the moon. The beautiful complexity of human connection is what interests Erin most. But she also enjoys dancing and playing darts.

bling terms

Kiki Dranias

any core desire or need one may have, we must trust is exactly that: core and with no need to adapt. this thing is inherent of us; why on earth would we set out to adjust something that is such. perfection is flawed. i am going to keep this idea—tattooed in Read more

Kiki Dranias

KIKI DRANIAS is a multi award-winning Hellenic-Canadian poet, playwright, director & producer living in Montreal. Kiki’s debut play GOING UP, an immersive and site-specific theatrical presentation, was performed live for 14 shows in November 2019, on board Elevator #1 at LE 5800 St. Denis, in Montreal. Winning three of the categories, including Outstanding New Text, Outstanding Emerging Playwright & Producer, Outstanding Independent Production, this sold-out inaugural production received in total seven nominations at the 2020 Montreal English Theatre Awards. This playwright’s second theatrical work WHERE IS ANTON is a 40-minute piece that Kiki wrote, produced and also directed. The show was performed live at the 30th Montreal Fringe Festival in June 2021, for six sold-out shows at MainLine Theatre. With primary support from Canada Council for the Arts, Kiki wrote and produced her third play THE LOVE TRIAL, a 75-minute modern Greek tragedy. This hybrid type and immersive theatrical presentation was performed live in front of 500 audience members in December 2021, for seven shows at the Masonic Temple Hall in Montreal. As a poet, Kiki has also authored BLOOD IS BLUE, a well-received poetry collection. To showcase her work and the work of others, this woman artist works under the Purple Divine producing and publishing banner.

Letter to My Frozen Embryos

Rebecca Lee

I’m sorry I left you there waiting in suspended animation your crystal cradles safely ensconced (or so I pray) in stainless steel under blankets of liquid nitrogen 2 XY + 3 double-X I tallied your perfect chromosomes 46 times just to be sure We lost so many others before Day Read more

Rebecca Lee

Rebecca Lee is a public interest lawyer by day and writer of poetry and prose by night. A queer writer of color, she is a graduate of Yale College and UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was Senior Articles Editor of the California Law Review and co-Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice. Her poetry is forthcoming in Dispatches from Quarantine. She lives in San Francisco with her fiancé and their Goldendoodle, Justice.

cause & effect

Anne Leigh Parrish

tell her she’s a witch, she’ll cast a spell say she’s a queen, she’ll rule the roost call her ugly, she’ll lie in bed praise her beauty, she’ll dare the sun whisper she’s stupid & she’ll flunk the test insult her limp & she’ll stand still call her temptress, she’ll 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.

Stare

Eloisa Perez-Lozano

Your lips said “Ciao bella,” but your eyes penetrated me, licking every inch of my skin with your leer. Your sultry silhouette catches the corner of my eye before moving on… yet you linger. I briefly see the sides of your mouth curl up as you pass, a reaction to Read more

Eloisa Perez-Lozano

Eloísa Pérez-Lozano writes poems and essays about Mexican-American identity, women’s issues, and motherhood. She graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in journalism and mass communications. A 2016 Sundress Publications Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in “The Texas Observer,” “Houston Chronicle,” and “Poets Reading the News,” among others. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas.