Lies

Most people don’t notice that I’m constantly ready to run. That my shoulders are tense. My eyes watching for danger. My breath shallow. My brain working on overdrive. What do I do next? Am I saying the wrong thing? Are people looking at me? Do I look okay? Does everyone Read more

Myrna CG Mibus

Myrna CG Mibus is a writer and bookseller who lives in Northfield, Minnesota. She writes articles on topics ranging from aviation to afternoon tea and essays on family, motherhood, and life. Her essays and articles have been published in a variety of publications including Feminine Collective, Grown & Flown, Minneapolis StarTribune and Wanderlust Journal. When she’s not writing, Myrna enjoys baking, bicycling, gardening, reading and being mom to her two young adult children.

Strangers at Birth

My mother wasn’t much of one. If you put aside the fact that she abandoned me, in the winter, less than twenty-four hours after I entered the world, then the note she left propped on my thin yellow cotton blanket said it all: Take her. I can’t do this. I Read more

Cate Carlyle

Cate Carlyle is a librarian and the author of two young adult novels and a library reference book. Her short story “The Brothers” was shortlisted in the WFNS Nova Writes competition. Cate lives in Nova Scotia with her partner and supportive first-reader Bruce and their fur baby, Zoey.

The Girl with Her Heart in a Box

There once was a girl who kept her heart in a box. She met a man and wanted to show him her heart. She opened the box, and took out her heart, piece by piece, laying it on the floor for him to see. You see, another man had once Read more

Emily Algar

Emily Frances Algar is a journalist and writer. She has experience in the music industry working as the A&R on the Grammy Nominated Album (Best Folk Album) Front Porch by artist Joy Williams. Emily has been published in a number of print and digital publications including Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, and Record Collector magazine. She specializes in both long and short-form features as well as interviews and reviews. She has written pieces ranging from the commercialization of feminism and feminism in popular culture, critiques surrounding freedom of speech and the #MeToo movement as well as recently interviewing refugees from Iran. Emily has a Masters in International Security from Oxford Brookes University. Her thesis looked at the extent to which the media shaped public opinion during the Vietnam and Iraq (2003) wars.

Blank Slate

I want to tell you about the times I fell in love with you. I should say hi, First. So, hi. The first time You opened A slim door; you said, come anytime, Show me your insides. I wanted to tell you about the times I wanted to marry you. Read more

Elisabeth Horan

Elisabeth Horan is a poet mother student lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She writes to survive and survives to write - We are all battling something. Let's support each other. Elisabeth enjoys riding horses and caring for her cats, chickens, goats and children (not necessarily in that order). She teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.

Black Women’s Acts of Resistance and Resilience to Trauma

Dineen skillfully dug her purple latex-swathed fingers into my bare left shoulder blade, and I yelped, “O-o-o-uch!” “Sor-ry!” Dineen cheerfully apologized. If I didn’t know better, I would think that she enjoyed torturing me. But this wasn’t that kind of relationship. Dineen is a petite, dark-haired, twenty-something Filipina physical therapist Read more

Lourdes Dolores Follins

Lourdes Dolores Follins is a Black queer woman who comes from a long line of intrepid women and working-class strivers. She comfortably straddles the worlds of academic and creative nonfiction. When Lourdes Dolores isn’t writing, she’s working as a psychotherapist with QTIPOC and kinky people in New York City.

Let Me Lie

Let me lie in my vomit Don’t wash my feathers with your tears They’re piercing me like blunt nails puncturing Jesus on the cross My wings hang heavy on the brink of my failures Their weight breaks my backbone Regrets taste like dust and mold in my mouth I’ve never Read more

Adriana Morgan

Adriana Morgan completed a Ph.D. in French Literature at the University of Letters in Nantes, France. She is fluent in six languages and worked as a translator and terminologist at the European Commission in Luxembourg and the United Nations in New York. She taught French at the University of Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, India, the French Alliance and the Universities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, Chile. She currently works as a multi-dimensional artist: painter, poet, and children's picture books writer and illustrator. She's been born in Bucharest, Romania, currently living in nice, France. Adriana is the first prize winner of the Midnight Mozaic Fiction (Medium, 2019), one of the selected winners of the Canadian poetry contest—Quebec and the Francophony, and second prize winner of the Daniil Pashkoff International Poetry Contest, 2018, Germany. Adriana Morgan's artworks and literary works have been published or are forthcoming in 'Beyond Words Literary Magazine', 'Infinity Room,' 'Spillwords', and 'Ullalume Lighthouse' among others.

Birdwatcher

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.

GIRL WITH THE BROKEN BACK

See how she scuttles across the floor The cold tile numbs, then burns Her palms, knees, shins All portions of flesh pressed on The harder thing—the hardest thing Not cursed yet— —Soon Then there’s this back The thing that holds her together The thing she’s built around Grew up around Read more

Anne Leigh Parrish

Award-winning writer Anne Leigh Parrish’s next novel, an open door, will be published in October 2022 by Unsolicited Press. Recent titles from Unsolicited Press are the moon won’t be dared, a poetry collection, October 2021, and a winter night, a novel, released in March 2021. She is the author of seven other books. She has recently ventured into the art of photography and lives in the South Sound Region of Washington State. Find her online at her website, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Instagram, Linked In, and Goodreads.