Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
I admit it; it’s true. I’m far too sensitive for a grown man. At any given moment, I could easily find myself whimpering, sniffling or flat-out weeping about something emotional. Besides experiencing unexpected emo-break downs, I often self-induce my emotional triggers, just for fun. To get my fix, I fanatically Read more
My mother comes to pick me up from kindergarten and is pulled aside by the teacher. “Your daughter doesn’t color between the lines.” “She knows how she just doesn’t want to.” One week later, the same conversation repeats. So, my mother chooses another school for me—my mother, who dropped out Read more
Hiba Zafran is a therapist and academic working in mental health. She is drawn to critical and queering lenses, as well as poetic explorations of encounters as relational spaces of transformation. Her literary work is just starting to step out there, with a poem in The Muse and honorable mention for a micro-essay in Mothers Always Write. She is grateful for the people, values, and peripheries that she calls her home.
The April Mom died, I resisted going East, believing that if I didn’t go, she wouldn’t die. I did not want her spry, wise, funny light extinguished. But my second daughter, then fifteen, looked at me with scorn and said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m going to Read more
I am a writer and mother, living in Shaker Heights, OH, where I am the Head of Laurel School, a girls' school. Our house is full of books and tiny rescue dogs. My work has appeared in Literary Mama, Mothers Always Write, the Brevity Blog, Mutha, Mamlode, The Grief Diaries, Manifest Station and elsewhere. My essay about becoming a teacher was recently published in Creative Nonfiction's anthology What I Didn't Know. I blog semi-regularly for the Huffington Post.
I like to read books
and watch the sunset
pull dirt out of sentences.
Christina Strigas is an author and poet, raised by Greek immigrants, who has written four poetry books. Her poetry book LOVE & VODKA was featured by CBC Books in, “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List: 68 Poetry Collections Recommended by you.” Her most recent poetry book, LOVE & METAXA, has garnered positive reviews, including Pank Magazine. Strigas’s poems have appeared in Montreal Writes, Feminine Collective, Neon Mariposa Magazine, Pink Plastic House Journal, BlazeVOX, Thimble Lit Magazine, Twist in Time Literary Magazine, The Temz Review, and Coffin Bell Journal, among others. Her poem, “Dead Wife” was nominated for best of the net 2020. In Spring 2022, she will be releasing her fifth poetry book by Free Lines Press, a French indie magazine that publishes experimental poetry. Twitter: @christinastriga Instagram : @c.strigas_sexyasspoet Facebook: Christina Strigas Author
“Celebrate more in life, even the little things. I didn’t do that enough.” —Herman Soichi Noji When I think about my father’s journey at the end of his life, the word that comes up is MAGIC. There were days in which his dementia took full force, and the nurses would Read more
Minae Noji is a writer, actress, voice-over Empress and rat enthusiast. She makes her home in Los Angeles and is devoted to empowerment, wholeheartedness, and studly ninjas.
My daughter’s eyes are swollen and puffy-popped pink with 85% pollen and 15% heartbreak. The boy who has been calling her his for the last year, has decided that she is not his any longer. She is 10. I hug her against me, hold just enough restraint in my sympathy Read more
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.
My mother’s death was a shock at first. And then it was a relief. She was diagnosed with bone cancer on March 9, 2012. She died in the last minutes of March 21. How long she had had the bone cancer, her doctor would not suppose. What was known was Read more
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 mom desires a closeness with me now that she never did when I was young. I’d long suspected my mother didn’t embrace parenting in that fervent, born-for-this way that some of us do. Still, I was stunned the day she actually confirmed just how trapped she’d felt in the Read more
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.
