Tag: divorce

Bag of Blue

Sharon Mack

There is a blue plastic WalMart bag caught in a branch of the maple tree in my daughter’s front yard. It has been there since April, four seasons ago. It’s amazingly high – far beyond the nest of squirrels and the honeycomb of holes the woodpecker has drilled. Way above Read more

Sharon Mack

Sharon Mack is an award-winning journalist who retired to the hardscrabble but inspirational coast of Maine after 35 years at Maine's largest newspaper. Now she tells her own stories instead of the world's. She has been published in Claudius Speaks, Nebo: A Literary Journal and is working on a novel set on Halifax Island in Machias Bay.

Day 90: The Atomic Weight of Guilt

Amye Archer

As a child, you lay on your father’s belly while the New York Yankees run bases on a small black and white television in your old apartment. Your small frame, so thin your mother has to “take in” every pair of pants you own, rises and falls with his breath. 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.

Her Name Was JOY

Renee DeMont

As she stepped inside my home tonight, I could see she wasn’t in a hurry. Seemed to want to linger a bit. Came to pick up a beautiful angel snow globe I sold her on a local mom to mom sales site. For the last month, I have been committed Read more

Renee DeMont

Renee DeMont is a SURVIVOR. She was born into poverty; spent much of her childhood homeless, living on the streets of Los Angeles, and in foster care. Renee learned early on: life is about adapting to adversity. The greatest gift she ever received? No one expected anything from her. By 18, she was ready to experience life on her own terms. First one in her family to attend college. After college, her focus and determination earned her a spot working at Paramount Studios, on the #1 show in television, "Cheers". At 29, Renee gave entrepreneurship a go and began a Biomedical engineering business out of her garage. Twenty years later, that risky venture grew into 8,000 square feet of success. She broke the cycle of poverty that plagued her family for generations. Recently, Renee turned fifty, filed for divorce (he declared WAR), and trudged through a debilitating nervous breakdown. Through therapy and writing, she reclaimed her sanity. Sold her half of the business to the ex, and now she has clarity and choices. Renee is personally and financially independent. With her new found freedom, she chooses to write in a sincere effort to reconcile her past with her present. Hopefully, through this cathartic process, the second half of her life will be led by her soul's desire, rather than by the fears and doubts of her first half. Currently, she lives in South Orange County with her teenage son and daughter, and her high maintenance yet lovable dog, Joe. Soon to be an empty nester, she plans to downsize the big house in the OC bubble, for a bigger life in the real world. Her days are spent gently launching her almost grown children into adulthood, and passionately penning her memoir. In the mean time, you can find her essays on pain, positivity, and empowerment at: onedropofgrace.blogspot.com

Step Nine

Robin Vigfusson

How shrewd of him to corner her at work since there was no door to slam in his face; she shared a space with four other women, but how could he have known that? Remarkably, he was obese. His ferrety leanness as a young man had seemed metabolic, but now Read more

Robin Vigfusson

I earned an M.A. in Political Science from NYU, but my real love is fiction, especially short stories. My work has appeared in Coe Review, Windmill, The Blue Hour, Referential Magazine, Caravel Literary Arts Journal, Lunaris Review, Bookends Review, Junto Magazine, Jewish Fiction.net, Fine Flu Journal, Old 67 and podcast on No Extra Words.

Day 42: Various Positions

Amye Archer

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.

love. (lost?)

Wendy C Garfinkle

i remember you. when first we met i, barely more than a child you, already touched by war. two different worlds converging. you overcame my shyness with your admiration for my writing skills. we talked and exchanged numbers. though we lived in the same town, rarely met face-to-face hours would Read more

Wendy C Garfinkle

Wendy is a writer and editor who holds multiple degrees from several universities, including MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. She's the author of SERPENT ON A CROSS, a Jewish Medieval Fantasy, and a poet. She has served as a copy editor and panel reader for Hippocampus Magazine, as a reader for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and as an editor and proofreader for Booktrope and its Gravity Imprint. Wendy's most recent venture is her freelance editing business, Grammar Goddess Editing. In her day job, Wendy is a crime analyst for a sheriff's office. Her hobbies include writing, reading,and traveling. She lives in South Florida with her teenage son.

For Medicinal Purposes Only

Julie Anderson

You are so crazy I can’t take it anymore I will not have this kind of drama in my life You are strange and unpredictable Am I CRAZY? What makes you think that? Is it because I grind my teeth every night, chasing demons in my dreams? Is it because Read more

Julie Anderson

Julie Anderson is the Creator and Publisher of Feminine Collective. Julie was inspired to create this safe place for women to share their secrets, desires, triumphs and pain as the antithesis of what mainstream media offers women today. In her column Pursuit of Perfection, she explores the importance of rectifying the balance of inner and outer beauty through essays, poems and articles on self-esteem, shame, family, and self- acceptance.

Don’t Want Your Good Ol’ Days

H.M. Jones

Testosterone tainted thrusts
of masculine need,
cumming sloppily all over
my social feed,

H.M. Jones

H.M. Jones is a mother, writer, teacher and poet. She is the author of Monochrome, the B.R.A.G Medallion dark fantasy about postpartum depression and the beauty of memories. Monochrome will be released,by Feminine Collective Publishing, marking the books third incarnation. Along with a few self-published poetry books, H.M.'s poetry will be featured in three different anthologies in 2015 and 2016. When she's not mothering, teaching, or writing, she is weaving, kickboxing, pulling in the canoe or reading.