Category: Friends + Family

Searching For Home

Tom Lagasse

At night, after my day as a spice merchant concludes, the smell of garlic and onion dust coats my clothes and body like a new skin, as though I am someone different. I do not shower before visiting my parents, my scent melds with their age and confinement. My mother Read more

Tom Lagasse

Tom’s poetry has been published in Black Bough’s Poetry Freedom & Rapture and Dark Confessions; Faith, Hope, and Fiction; Silver Birch Press Prime Movers Series, Freshwater Literary Review, Word Mill Magazine, The Monterey Poetry Review, and Plum Tree Tavern, along with a half dozen anthologies among others. Several short stories appeared in The Feminine Collective. He lives in Bristol, CT.

Mia. Her name is Mia.

Dori Owen

  “Home, is it just a word? Or is it something that you carry within you?” —Nomadland   I met Mia when I was walking my dog Izzy about three o’clock yesterday afternoon. It was hot. Arizona hot. High 90s in April. After a lovely week in the 70s, a 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.

They Could Guillotine a Baby’s Hand: A Foster Mother’s Story

Sara Mesa Wright

The narrow wooden bench creaks and bows every time someone sits next to me. It arcs so deeply when a heavy man sits in the very middle, two feet away from my tight clasp of the built-in armrest at the end, that I fear the old wooden fibers are spreading Read more

Sara Mesa Wright

Sara Mesa Wright lives with her husband and five children in central Michigan. She writes about the dark reality of foster care and adoption because she’s been called a ‘saint’, and her children ‘lucky’, one time too many. She writes and blogs under a pseudonym to protect the privacy of her children at fosterfurther.blogspot.com.

Birdwatcher

Judith Staff

Why does our new house always feel dark? Some nights, the darkness steals my sleep, seeping from the corners of my bedroom. Is the house gloomy, or the people inside? The backyard looks so light, so bright, but it’s merely the snow’s reflection. My mother has a new bird book, 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 Branch Removed

Amber R. Dulaney

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.

When the Parent Becomes the Child: And Then There Was One

Dori Owen

I’ve never minded solitude. For a writer, it’s a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a particular kind of loneliness. —Laurie Graham My mother is leaving me. Her mind allows her to tell me about my favorite stuffed animal when I was three, my Effalunt, but 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.

Kissing the Patriarch Goodbye

Karin Swann-Rubenstein

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

What Happened Last Night at Maria’s

GKS Waller

I wanted to keep playing Kick the Can, but the other girls said they were too hot, and it was getting too dark, and they were tired from running and didn’t want to be surprised like that anymore. We were sweating. So were the boys. It was an almost-summer Sunday Read more

GKS Waller

GKS Waller’s career path veered dramatically when, at age 10, she realized being a veterinarian would mean she'd have to put animals to sleep. Inspired by her cartoon idol, the savvy red-headed reporter Brenda Starr, she heeded the call to embark upon the life of a scribe and tale teller. A year later, Waller created her first job as sole founder, writer, editor, designer and salesperson of The Claremont Review, named so in honor of the Chicago avenue she called home. The literary and artistic experiences of her youth led her to pursue journalism, oral storytelling, photography, printmaking and teaching. She continues to find inspiration from seemingly everyday moments and views along the many roads she's traveled through the world. Waller was named a runner-up for the Chicago Tribune 2018 Nelson Algren Literary Award, a finalist in the 2018 Hemingway Shorts contest, and most recently has been published in The Timberline Review. She’s online at @GKSWriter but most days you will find her working on her short story collection and fine tuning the draft of her first novel, in a cozy workspace not far from Claremont Avenue.