By Any Means Necessary

My mother’s hair was high in the sixties, beehive style. A social climber, she secured invitations to every ritzy Reagan-Republican-Beverly-Hills-circle-of-influence affair. Hearing about a party to which she had not been invited, she’d find a way to run into the host at the market or feign a reason to call. Read more

Jennifer Wheelock

Jennifer Wheelock's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including Post Road, Lake Effect, Stone River Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems (Negative Capability Press), Flycatcher, Diagram, Quill’s Edge Press, River Styx, Atlanta Review, New Millennium Writings, The Inflectionist Review, and North Atlantic Review. She lives and works in Los Angeles and is also a painter.

The Weight of Being a Woman

As I sit here six months pregnant, I ponder about my life and what my existence has become. So many women have told me how beautiful the gift of life is, and “just wait until you look at your baby for the first time,” how magical it will be. It’s Read more

Hannah Forkel-Matte

Hannah Forkel-Matte is a writer and legal assistant in Evansville, Indiana. She graduated in 2014, with her Bachelor's Degree in English from the University of Southern Indiana. She mainly writes to share her experiences through non-fiction work, but also dabbles in fiction when a solid idea strikes.

LAMENT

                                                                   In memory of Renata Horowitz My darling’s photographs were reflections of her inner eye. I look at Read more

Anne Whitehouse

Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press, 2016). She has also written a novel, Fall Love, which is now available in Spanish translation as Amigos y amantes by Compton Press. Recent honors include: 2018 Prize Americana for Prose, 2017 Adelaide Literary Award in Fiction, 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, 2016 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com

Safe Words

Baby, where you going? Baby, you don’t know a thing. You don’t know the ways of the world, Stop saying such words Stop saying “cock” Stop saying “fuck” Why’s everything you say have to be a dirty joke? Stop wearing all those opinions on your sleeve, A heart is safer Read more

Rebecca Charlotte

Rebecca Charlotte is a recent graduate of Westfield State University, a small liberal arts school in New England, where she majored in English with a concentration in literature. Currently, she works at two libraries. By day, Rebecca is a nerdy librarian, by night she is a nerdy librarian who devours books and superhero shows. Her work has appeared in BUST, elephant journal, Her Campus, and will be included in the upcoming issue of Doll Hospital Journal.

My Non-Television Mother and Me: The Interview

Read Part 1 here.  Part 2 of a 3 part series In an attempt to understand my mother a little better, I asked her a couple of questions that remained unanswered to myself. My mother has come so far in life, but she appears to be stuck. I want to Read more

Richard DeFino

Ricky De Fino grew up in New York City and currently resides in Buffalo NY. When he isn’t writing about his anxiety and his crazy Bronx upbringing, he enjoys watching countless hours of television with his wife Andrea, cat Bebe and dog Zeke. Two years sober, good coffee and veganism keeps him sane. His work can be found in Two Cities Review, tNY Press, Purple Pig Lit, Dialougal and Cycatrix Press.

Sometimes, A Man Still Needs His Mom

“…a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” – Ephesians 5:31 “Sometimes, a man still needs his mom.” – Dave Pacailler, November 2016 At 81 years old, my mother is the epitome of old-school tradition. She goes Read more

I Promise

How do I tell you that you are beautiful? How do I tell you that it’s not your fault? That when I left your house I was plenty strong enough. That you are a good mother, that the world hasn’t been as cruel to me as you think. How do Read more

Icess Fernandez

Icess Fernandez Rojas is a journalist, blogger, teacher, and writer based in Houston. She earned my BA in Communications from the University of Houston and my MFA from Goddard College. She’s been published in USA Today, NBCNews.com, HuffingtonPost and the Guardian. She’s had fiction anthologized in Soul’s Road: A Fiction Collection and published in literary journals including Minerva Rising and The Fem Lit Magazine. Icess is also a VONA/Voices of Our Nation Foundation alum.

25 Things About My Mother

“But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.” ―Mitch Albom, For One More Day 1. One of my first memories of my mother is her French braiding my hair while I sat on our kitchen stool. Unfortunately, this was class picture day Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.