Category: Blogs

FLEDGLING

Angel Rosen

When I was born, my mother clipped my wings. Just the red ones. I flapped and tapped on my incubator for six weeks until they released me into her arms, a pink infant in knots and a woman with scissors up her sleeve. Life as a cardstock canary, a polymer Read more

Angel Rosen

Angel Rosen is a poet living near Pittsburgh. She can be found at open mic nights, drag shows or writing poetry in the dark. She is passionate about mental health, queer friendship, and Amanda Palmer's art community. Her writing can be found at angelrosen.com.

The Catalogue of Men

Cynthia Good

Before sunrise I’m flipping through a catalogue of men,  A parade of men looking for relationships, super closeups, Guys in ball caps, blurry headed, sideways, in bed, crazy  Faces with monsters, in cubicles, beside lattice fences,  Strapped into car seats, in the shower, in private airplanes  And parking lots, with Read more

Cynthia Good

Cynthia Good is an award-winning poet, journalist, former TV news anchor, and author of the chapbook, What We Do with Our Hand published last fall by Finishing Line Press. She has written seven books and launched two magazines. Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in numerous journals including Tupelo Quarterly, Terminus Magazine, Waxing and Waning. Her full-length manuscript, In The Thaw of Day, has just been accepted for publication.

How Do You Feel About Nudity?

Dianne Blomberg, Ph.D.

I had been someone’s wife. When he died, I was someone’s widow. I could hardly breathe, carrying the weight of us in me. One pint at a time, Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra soothed, but the feeling of longing took me down, longing for us and longing now for me. Read more

Dianne Blomberg, Ph.D.

Dianne Blomberg is an author/speaker living in Colorado. She’s published in HerStry, Feminine Collective, Across the Margin, Button Eye Review, Alpha Female Society, Dove Tales-Abrazos, Volney Road Review, Krazines, American Writer’s Review, and more. Her essays are in “Best Of” publications and anthologies, she’s authored two children’s books. She is the former President of the Denver Woman’s Press Club. Her work is featured on podcasts. Dianne’s relationship research is cited in Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Family Life, Newsday-New York, The Denver Post and more. Dianne is working on a book of essays, What Else You Got, Girl? And co-writing a sitcom TV-pilot, “Happy Landing.”

ARMED

Susan Shea

I didn’t want to raise an unarmed saint after seeing my mother wear that role, always waiting for some relief like an unsheared sheep, she walked her muddy field alone until she fell from the weight of her own worsted wool, unable to feed herself. I was powerless then but Read more

Susan Shea

Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was born in New York City, and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. She feels like she is coming alive again, able to return to writing poetry. Susan has been published in Plainsongs, Pudding, The Bluebird Word, and The Agape Review. Recently Susan has had poems accepted for Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Bookends Review, Exstasis, Poetry Breakfast, and four anthologies by The Moonstone Arts Center:The Weight of Motherhood, by Wingless Dreamer: Darkness Within Me, by Pure Slush Books: Lifespan Series:Achievement, and by Poet’s Choice: Nostalgia.

Late Night

Judith Staff

“You look tired.” Yeah. “Late night?”  No….no, it’s not that. I’m tired of trying change; of trying to heal from the trauma; of trying to discover a plateau of self-acceptance; of trying to be an adequate person, and better wife; of trying to worry less about being a good mother. 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.

Heart’s Paradox

Paula R. Hilton

When you weren’t looking, I slipped a piece of my heart, its left ventricle, into your suitcase. This chamber pumps blood throughout the entire body. Mine, yours, ours. Waiting for a transplant, Stan Larkin lived 555 days with no heart at all. Carried artificial organ’s power source inside a gray Read more

Paula R. Hilton

Paula R. Hilton explores the immediacy of memory and how our most important relationships define us. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has appeared in The Feminine Collective, The Sunlight Press, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, Dear Damsels, The Tulane Review, and elsewhere. Her novel, Little Miss Chaos, was selected as a Best Indie Teen Read by Kirkus, and her first poetry collection, At Any Given Second, received a Kirkus star. She holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

Box-bed

Emma Wells

Austrian winters cut deep, brandishing exposed skin with bitingly cold plumes, descending from mountain tops. The only feasible way to survive a rural Austrian winter in 1820, especially the duration of its bleakest months, December to March, is to obtain a box-bed. A simple box-bed. Raised from the floor, enclosed Read more

Emma Wells

Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry and prose published with various literary journals and magazines. She is currently writing her fifth novel. Emma won Wingless Dreamer’s Bird Poetry Contest of 2022 and her short story, ‘Virginia Creeper’, was selected as a winning title by WriteFluence Singles Contest in 2021. Recently, Emma won Dipity Literary Magazine’s 2024 Best of the Net Nominations for Fiction with a short story entitled ‘The Voice of a Wildling’. Her poem ‘Rose-Tainted is the winner of the poetry category, Discourse Literary Journal, February 2024 Issue.

Betrayed by Biology

DB Maddox

I can’t remember where I was when Father got home that day. Probably, I was somewhere inside the house; maybe I was in the living room. Maybe sitting cross-legged on the dingy, frayed oriental rug that had tufts of cat and dog and probably human hair tangled in its tassels Read more

DB Maddox

I was a clueless kid back then but I always followed my heart; I knew I wanted to be a Writer but I didn't know what that meant, or what my options were. So I became an Editor--it was something that just came naturally to me. Twenty-plus years later, I'm still an Editor. It has served me well, at least in the day-to-day; and when you're in survival mode, just getting through the day is enough. But at roughly the midway mark of my career, and looking up from the precipice of what must have been my 17th relapse, I thought that maybe this was just my destiny, and if so, there simply had to be value in chronicling it. And while my reasons for writing a memoir may have been tenuous and ever-evolving, it was never about catharsis. Instead, by reliving the trauma of my upbringing and the desperation of my youth, I discovered that I had had agency all along, in my own twisted way; and I felt compelled to share that revelation and have spent years searching for a platform to do just that--until I found the Feminine Collective. I invite you to engage therein with this ongoing series of excerpts from my debut memoir, "Constellation of Pleasure: Only the Stars Can Hear Me," a tale unduly tragic, but through which I expect readers will perceive a reflection of themselves to whatever degree, and be empowered.