Tag: prose

Don’t Box Me In

Jacqueline Cioffa

I understand you. The unlucky, the unwanted, the misfits, the downtrodden. The middles, the lower class, the majority. I have been the underdog, the stigma, and the less desirable. I have been locked up, and it the lowest, most terrifying depths of despair. I have been locked up for my 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.

survivor

Rebecca Kokitus

I never thought of myself as a survivor / just in the wrong place at the wrong time / don’t get in an elevator with someone who makes you uncomfortable, just take the stairs his first kiss, my first sexual assault / go home smelling like the teenager I never Read more

Rebecca Kokitus

Rebecca Kokitus is a part time resident of Media, PA which is just outside of Philadelphia, and a part time of a small town in rural Schuylkill County, PA. She is an aspiring poet and is currently an undergraduate in the writing program at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. More of her writing can be found in Rag Queen Periodical and Spider Mirror Journal among other places. She tweets @rxbxcca_anna

Like My Son, Who I Lost

Elisabeth Horan

He reminded me of my son; my son who I lost. He had the same hair, brown and tousled; the same eyes, vacant, almond oceans of angst. I still can’t breathe from the vacuous loss, he walked away one night after we fought. He was doing drugs, I could tell 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.

After the Breakdown

Julie Anderson

If I had not exploded, I would never have found my fuse. I would not know where my dynamite is stored or who I should let light my fire. If I didn’t fall apart, I never could have known the brilliance of love, the pain of ignorance or the power of 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.

Her

Judith Staff

A rare chance to leave work early, and pick my youngest child up afterschool. Parents I recognize only vaguely, cluster in the playground, some talking in groups, others marginalised, standing alone on the periphery. I stare into my phone, looking preoccupied, the stark divisions shredding my nerves with anxiety. She’s 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.

An Accident of Love

Nan Byrne

Once when I was young, I read a story in the newspaper. A man had gone on a picnic with his wife and children. They spent the day by the lake, playing in the water, throwing a football, and doing all the typical things that families do. At the lake, Read more

Nan Byrne

Nan Byrne is a feminist poet and television writer. The author of two books, her poems have appeared in a variety of feminist journals including Phoebe: A Feminist Quarterly, Canadian Woman Studies, Earth’s Daughters, Critical Matrix: Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture, Poemmemoirstory, So To Speak, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of grants from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, and is currently at work on a documentary about Margaret Fuller, an early feminist and the first woman journalist.