How to Stop Nagging and Start Loving

We’ve all been there. We’re tired, overworked and can feel it coming on. We lash out at the people around us, knowing we’re doing it, and yet we can’t stop. That’s usually when the nagging starts. We nag at our partners, our children, hell we even nag at the family Read more

SA Smith

SA Smith has always loved the magical life. She is the bestselling Amazon author of FOREVER, her four part young adult paranormal romance series. She is an advocate for women of all shapes and sizes. Believing that we are all enough just as we are, and needing to spread that word far and wide. Having been diagnosed with CRPS over 12 years ago, SA also uses her writing to increase social awareness of the disease. Writing is her passion. She often tells friends that writing is a journey for her. It’s like spending time with friends. "I just follow my characters along on their adventures, like a fly on the wall, and see where they take me." SA currently lives in Florida with her best friend/husband and their one son.

Flies’ Goodbyes

We met, we bartered, we pricked at a dead fly with needles. The papery light above us, a hangout for living cousins. Or perhaps he looks down on us now again, already reincarnated. All with gnashed teeth, insane smiles, buzzing … Damn them. Small hairs on my husband’s head, balding, Read more

Neesa Suncheuri

Neesa Suncheuri works as a mental health peer specialist at a housing agency in Queens, New York. She is the founder of a Facebook discussion group for peer specialists and other recovery enthusiasts, entitled “What is Wellness? A Mental Health Discussion Group.” She also maintains a blog called Unlearning Schizophrenia, and is a regular contributor of poetry and fiction at Organic Coffee, Haphazardly. She is also a singer/songwriter, and an enthusiast of the German language and culture.

10 Ways to Live Your Life to the Fullest

I was at a funeral the other day of a dear friend’s daughter and child. After many tears, the clergy stood to read us the eulogy. He told us of a poem by Linda Ellis called “The Dash”. He spoke of the date of birth and the date of death, Read more

SA Smith

SA Smith has always loved the magical life. She is the bestselling Amazon author of FOREVER, her four part young adult paranormal romance series. She is an advocate for women of all shapes and sizes. Believing that we are all enough just as we are, and needing to spread that word far and wide. Having been diagnosed with CRPS over 12 years ago, SA also uses her writing to increase social awareness of the disease. Writing is her passion. She often tells friends that writing is a journey for her. It’s like spending time with friends. "I just follow my characters along on their adventures, like a fly on the wall, and see where they take me." SA currently lives in Florida with her best friend/husband and their one son.

I am a Counterfeit Memory Hero

As I turned on the light and maneuvered my way into the closet, I made full use of my Tetris skills. I shuffled past boxes of record albums, computer parts and dozens of other boxes of unrecognizable junk and crammed my way to the very back. After much sweating, swearing, Read more

How I Found My Way Back to Myself

I tried to re-assemble my life but nothing seemed to fit. The Fendi bag that Giovanni’s mother had given me stood out like a sore thumb among my dancer friends’ canvas totes. I felt like this new man and new life required me to look the part, and looking the Read more

Jessica Abrams

Like her character Louise Bice in KNOCKING ON DOORS (www.knocking-on-doors.com) Jessica Abrams is a writer-slash-actress-slash-dog-walker-slash-contributor-to-an-obscure-dance-blog (although truth be told, ExploreDance.com is neither obscure nor a blog). Also like Louise, she had a stint working for the government as a field interviewer, an experience that proved to be creatively fruitful, inspiring IN TRAINING, the stories published here, and KNOCKING ON DOORS, the web series she wrote, directed and stars in. Her plays have had productions and readings in various Los Angeles venues, with “The Laughing Cow” receiving Pick of The Week by LA Weekly. She is thrilled to be a part of this amazing network of talented women.

Every Other Thursday

I we meet, and I dash across the room at his knock to open and feel the heat of his body engulf me like a blaze in my own galaxy. He runs his rough tongue over my salty skin all of its parts, sunburnt and scarred, and I crackle and Read more

Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Vrenios

Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Vrenios’ poetry has appeared in Clementine, Silver Birch Press, Kentucky Review, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable and Silkworm, in forthcoming issues of Edison Literary Review, Crack the Spine, Poeming Pidgeon and Unsplendid. She co-wrote the book Party Line under the name Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. She has studied with Judith Harris, Gloria Boyer, Hailey Leithauser, Sue Ellen Thompson and Alexandra Van de Kamp. Elizabeth is a professor emerita from American University in Washington DC, having chaired the vocal and music departments. Vrenios’ solo recitals throughout the United States, South America, Scandinavia, Japan and Europe have been acclaimed, and as the artistic director of the Redwoods Opera Workshop in Mendocino, California, and the Crittenden Opera Workshop in Washington D.C. and Boston, she has influenced and trained students across the country. She is a member of the international Who’s Who of Musicians, and is the past National President of the National Opera Association.

Living the Lie of Domestic Tranquility

In retrospect I realize that my not having a boyfriend for all those years had given me a deep sense of failure. Not just failure, but a feeling of being flawed in some basic human way. I knew I was attractive, but nonetheless felt un-womanly, like I was lacking a Read more

Jessica Abrams

Like her character Louise Bice in KNOCKING ON DOORS (www.knocking-on-doors.com) Jessica Abrams is a writer-slash-actress-slash-dog-walker-slash-contributor-to-an-obscure-dance-blog (although truth be told, ExploreDance.com is neither obscure nor a blog). Also like Louise, she had a stint working for the government as a field interviewer, an experience that proved to be creatively fruitful, inspiring IN TRAINING, the stories published here, and KNOCKING ON DOORS, the web series she wrote, directed and stars in. Her plays have had productions and readings in various Los Angeles venues, with “The Laughing Cow” receiving Pick of The Week by LA Weekly. She is thrilled to be a part of this amazing network of talented women.

Why I Became a Showgirl in Italy

In this creatively bleak époque, I was a modern dancer.

Jessica Abrams

Like her character Louise Bice in KNOCKING ON DOORS (www.knocking-on-doors.com) Jessica Abrams is a writer-slash-actress-slash-dog-walker-slash-contributor-to-an-obscure-dance-blog (although truth be told, ExploreDance.com is neither obscure nor a blog). Also like Louise, she had a stint working for the government as a field interviewer, an experience that proved to be creatively fruitful, inspiring IN TRAINING, the stories published here, and KNOCKING ON DOORS, the web series she wrote, directed and stars in. Her plays have had productions and readings in various Los Angeles venues, with “The Laughing Cow” receiving Pick of The Week by LA Weekly. She is thrilled to be a part of this amazing network of talented women.