Body Image and Me: Accepting Myself Even Though The Dress Doesn’t Fit Anymore

The dress is navy blue. Navy blue with cream color trim around the neck and armholes. It is a size small. I bought it to wear for an Easter Sunday; I don’t remember the year. The dress is one of the few pieces of clothing in my closet that doesn’t Read more

GIRL WITH THE BROKEN BACK

See how she scuttles across the floor The cold tile numbs, then burns Her palms, knees, shins All portions of flesh pressed on The harder thing—the hardest thing Not cursed yet— —Soon Then there’s this back The thing that holds her together The thing she’s built around Grew up around 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.

Wrong Questions

People ask me about the color of my hair, but they don’t care­—why would they? — about the color of my thoughts. People ignore the pink-copper hues of my ideas— gondolas gliding through my brain; they don’t see their turquoise blue shades— paper boats caught in a vortex. People ask Read more

Adriana Morgan

Adriana Morgan completed a Ph.D. in French Literature at the University of Letters in Nantes, France. She is fluent in six languages and worked as a translator and terminologist at the European Commission in Luxembourg and the United Nations in New York. She taught French at the University of Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, India, the French Alliance and the Universities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, Chile. She currently works as a multi-dimensional artist: painter, poet, and children's picture books writer and illustrator. She's been born in Bucharest, Romania, currently living in nice, France. Adriana is the first prize winner of the Midnight Mozaic Fiction (Medium, 2019), one of the selected winners of the Canadian poetry contest—Quebec and the Francophony, and second prize winner of the Daniil Pashkoff International Poetry Contest, 2018, Germany. Adriana Morgan's artworks and literary works have been published or are forthcoming in 'Beyond Words Literary Magazine', 'Infinity Room,' 'Spillwords', and 'Ullalume Lighthouse' among others.

A Branch Removed

Of our family tree you are a branch life’s cruel disposition removed from us when I was young; memories of you faded as years lapsed by the way a tree forgets leaves it shed over the years. Leaving me with stories my mother tells about the love you had for Read more

Amber R. Dulaney

Amber R. Dulaney is a stay at home Mom residing in Ohio with her husband. She aims for her writing to be relatable, aid in people knowing they are not alone, and in some way, helps them heal. In November of 2008, she received a diploma from The Institute of Children's Literature.

Kissing the Patriarch Goodbye

It’s been over six years now, since I last spoke to my father: mid-summer, July 15th, 2014. I was in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he was lying on a gurney at a funeral home — dead as a doornail. To hide the incisions of his autopsy, the back Read more

Karin Swann-Rubenstein

Karin is a writer (poetry, essays, social commentary) entranced by the relationship between inner-work and social change. Inspired by the revelations in her own healing, she's come to see the de-humanizing impact of patriarchy on women, men and people of color. She envisions the emergence of more empowered women, more attuned, self-reflective men, and the dismantling, for the betterment of all, of the patriarchal gender binary. After decades of inquiry as a feminist, queer activist and encouraged by the growing movement of men 'wanting out' of the "Man Box," she ascribes to a humanism that re-awakens the deep feminine in us all, where the power in our all-too-human vulnerability connects us with greater sympathy and respect for all things inter-dependent and of this earth. She holds masters degrees in gender studies/communication, political philosophy, and psychotherapy and is a long-time student of The Diamond Approach. When not writing, she’s mom to twin, 10-year-old boys and works with her husband on their retreat center in the Anderson Valley, CA. She lives with her family in Berkeley, CA. Another world is not only possible. She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. - Arundhati Roy

The Wrong James

I was about 21 years old when I began studying for a degree. Disinterested in furthering my education, it was not my wish, but my mother convinced me I would be a failure in life if I didn’t study. As I already believed I was a failure, going to university 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.

My Mother in the Afterlife

When my mother died, the vast weather of anger surrounding her like a force of nature dissolved and disappeared as if overnight. The change was astonishing. My father had his difficulties, but a constant display of anger was not one of them. In the old days, I might have gone Read more

Adrienne Pine

Adrienne Pine's creative nonfiction has been published in The Write Place at the Write Time, Tale of Four Cities, The Yale Journal of Humanities in Medicine, and other venues.

My String of Lights

V1This string of lights I hold in my hands always looks so prettySo bright, so perfect and hangs just soEach bulb is where it is meant to beThere are no knots in the wireOr broken filaments And each part hangs just where I want itAll making sense way up high on Read more

Emily Algar

Emily Frances Algar is a journalist and writer. She has experience in the music industry working as the A&R on the Grammy Nominated Album (Best Folk Album) Front Porch by artist Joy Williams. Emily has been published in a number of print and digital publications including Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, and Record Collector magazine. She specializes in both long and short-form features as well as interviews and reviews. She has written pieces ranging from the commercialization of feminism and feminism in popular culture, critiques surrounding freedom of speech and the #MeToo movement as well as recently interviewing refugees from Iran. Emily has a Masters in International Security from Oxford Brookes University. Her thesis looked at the extent to which the media shaped public opinion during the Vietnam and Iraq (2003) wars.