In Between the Rain

Have I been good enough, Mother? Oh how I miss the days when your skin was smooth, and bronzed How your smile beamed when you saw my little face Remember when you let me stay up late, way, way past bedtime To watch scary movies curled up on the cozy 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.

A Mother’s Lessons Lead to Her Final Gift

“I want to die.” It was hard to hear when my mother first said the words to me over the phone, but I understood why she felt that way. Besides robbing her of memory, that thief dementia had stolen my mom’s independence, dignity and ability to have an adult conversation. Read more

Mary Novaria

Mary Novaria's is a two-time Writer's Digest award winner whose work has been featured in Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Spirituality & Health, Cosmopolitan, Feminine Collective, FF2 Media, HuffPost, and elsewhere. She and her husband are empty nesters who live in the mountains of Colorado with their rescue dog, Rooney. She is currently working on a novel.

January Flashback: French Savoir with Patrice Bisiot

January Flashback: Originally published on FC, September 2014 As a celebrity and fashion hairstylist, I often find myself living out of a suitcase. The majority of my time is spent in the USA, splitting my home between New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Today, I’m landing in Paris, where I Read more

Patrice Bisiot

Patrice is a celebrity hair stylist working in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Paris. He was born and raised in Paris, France. His work can be seen on his website at PatriceBisiot.com.

Day 79: Birthdays

I get older; you get older. That’s how this works. My legs are healing. Bright pockmarks of red and white mark where the surgeon’s knife entered. An “X” to kill the tributaries. That’s what he told me. A balding, gentle man in his late seventies with his hands on my Read more

Amye Archer

Amye Archer holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her memoir, Fat Girl, Skinny, was named runner-up for the Red Hen Press Nonfiction Manuscript Award, and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has two poetry collections: BANGS and A Shotgun Life, both published by Big Table Publishing. Amye’s work has appeared in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Hippocampus, Mothers Always Write, Nailed Magazine, PMS: Poem Memoir Story, PANK, and Provincetown Arts. She is the creator of The Fat Girl Blog.

Stripes

In the time stripes run off to infinite raspberry rows, beach towels and barbed-wire fences white stones at veteran cemeteries, shirts on jockeys whip-flay scars on the winced back In those hours when engineers offer more parallels and planes, staircases, highway lines while poets write left to right, or right Read more

Tricia Knoll

Tricia Knoll is a tree-hugging feminist Oregon poet who is retired from many years of communications work for the City of Portland. She has a slight voice disabilty which makes humming sound better than her singing. Her fingernails are often dirty from working in a garden planned to attract pollinators, preserve native plants, and delight the eye with outrageous roses. Her poetry collections focus on eco-poetry. Ocean's Laughter (Aldrich Press 2016) focuses on change over time in a small Oregon town on the north coast. Urban Wild (Finishing Line Press 2014) examines human interactions with wildlife in urban habitat.

The Heart Never Grows Old

What is it with age? When we’re very young all we want to do is grow old in a hurry, then when we’re teenagers we act like toddlers. As do many seniors. The big crunch comes in middle age and stems from the looming terror of growing old, but it Read more

Susan P. Blevins

Susan P. Blevins was born in England, and escaped at age twenty on her life quest, moving first to Italy for 26 years, and then to the USA, where she now lives. The older she gets, the more passionately involved she becomes in the world, and the more she wants to make a personal contribution. She believes that we can all make a difference, one hug, and one smile at a time.

Day 42: Various Positions

For Leonard I’ve seen this room, and I’ve walked this floor. You know, I used to live alone before I knew you. The ceilings in my apartment in Wilkes-Barre are at least twenty feet high. I am not yet twenty-seven and am already divorced. When I come home drunk, I Read more

Amye Archer

Amye Archer holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her memoir, Fat Girl, Skinny, was named runner-up for the Red Hen Press Nonfiction Manuscript Award, and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has two poetry collections: BANGS and A Shotgun Life, both published by Big Table Publishing. Amye’s work has appeared in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Hippocampus, Mothers Always Write, Nailed Magazine, PMS: Poem Memoir Story, PANK, and Provincetown Arts. She is the creator of The Fat Girl Blog.

Blue, Blue, Blue

Tonight at the cafe I just crashed into my age Fractured my pride Wounded my self-image It doesn’t matter how old I feel The fact is, I AM OLD, and I was just rejected because I am 69, and not 59 No matter that I don’t look 69 Or feel Read more

Susan P. Blevins

Susan P. Blevins was born in England, and escaped at age twenty on her life quest, moving first to Italy for 26 years, and then to the USA, where she now lives. The older she gets, the more passionately involved she becomes in the world, and the more she wants to make a personal contribution. She believes that we can all make a difference, one hug, and one smile at a time.