“a plea”

maybe you will want to love another more than you could love me. so i ask of you, please do not let her name be written at the end of your list. don’t let her fall to the back burner, or at the very least, let her sit on the Read more

Lauren Anders

Lauren Anders is originally from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where she graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Oklahoma City University. She recently completed a master's program at the New York Academy of Art and now lives and works in Manhattan pursuing various artistic practices.

Caught

I do not know if I should cut my hair. It is very long. Some people call it obscenely long. It’s the color of wheat, and very often air dried so that it falls in irregular waves down to just above my thighs. When I brush it, the brush seems Read more

Jordan Hagedon

Jordan Hagedon is a fiction writer from Michigan, USA. She has stories in Flash Fiction Magazine and in an anthology by Stringybark Stories. Jordan is interested in the history of houses, old growth forests, and literature.

Diffraction

She senses it, anticipates it, as it’s preceded by a look; His eyes are on her, even though she doesn’t meet his gaze. His hands smoothing her hair down her back, he kisses her lips. His breathing warm, softly delivering “You’re so beautiful” into the curve of her neck. He 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.

Destroyer

Never content, you drew wayward thrills from my fear of abandonment. Fastidious, you picked my bud smelt it gently, then squashed it underfoot. You left with quiet force, your silent footfall boomed in my ears. split the space where we stood. Photo Credit: MattysFlicks Flickr via Compfight cc Ceinwen E. Read more

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon

Ceinwen lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. After a career as a probation officer, a mental health social worker and a practice educator she is concentrating on writing. She writes short stories and poetry. She has been published in web magazines and print anthologies. These include Fiction on the Web, Literally Stories, Alliterati, Stepaway, Poets Speak (whilst they still can), Three Drops from the Cauldron, Snakeskin, Obsessed with Pipework, The Linnet’s Wing, Blue Nib, Picaroon, Amaryllis, Algebra of Owls, Write to be Counted, The Lake, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Riggwelter, Poetry Shed, Southbank Poetry, Smeuse, Bandit Fiction, Atrium, Marauder, Prole, The Curlew, Mothers Always Write, Muse-Pie Press, Peeking Cat, Confluence, Porridge, Hedgehog, FlashBack Fiction and up-coming in Stonecoast Review. She was Highly Commended in the Blue Nib Chapbook Competition and won the Hedgehog Press Poetry Competition ‘Songs to Learn and Sing’. [August 2018]. In 2017 she graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University and she is now developing practice as a creative writing facilitator with hard to reach groups. She believes everyone’s voice counts.

Be The Part

Alone/Connected/Absolving/Regretting/Dismissive Walk the room in a waltz-like mode With heels and a tote, your lip gloss in a smear The garden, then, was at the back of the house Where we spend our days in some calculated abandonment All while baking cakes Reading journals of dystopian vision While I cut Read more

Tara Lynn Hawk

Tara Lynn Hawk is the author of poetry chapbooks Rhetorical Wanderlust and The Dead. Her work has appeared in On This Path We Travel: Women Poets Writing About Feminism and Nature, Along The Way. Moonchild, Occulum, Rasputin, Deracine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Uut, The Cabinet of Heed, Spelk, Wanton Fuckery, Midnight Lane Gallery, The Poet Community, Idle Ink, Spilling Cocoa, Poethead, Poems and Poetry, Social Justice Poetry and more. For more visit www.taralynnhawk.com"

BEGUILE

You are under the mistaken delusion that you are still capable of beguiling me. Oh no, that ended years ago when first you thought to abandon me. Hypnotize perhaps. Beguile never. Photo Credit: NuCastiel Flickr via Compfight cc Dori OwenDori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after 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.

Things Change

I could meet you tomorrow? That’s what I told him. Wow! Is that clock right? [A nervous laugh]. Can I come in? Get. Up. I miss you, always. I need to quit soon… I can fix that. I think I’m starving for something. I could look at your face all Read more

Jamie Sawczyszyn

Jamie has been writing all of her life, and went to school for 3 years to study professional writing. Though she just began submitting to publications more recently, she has hosted several slam poetry events for herself and other writers to perform their works of art. Writing is more of an artistic outlet for her, and mainly focuses on raw nonfiction prose and poetry. She is in the works of writing a nonfiction book, which will focus on the psychological impact that her childhood had on her as she grew into an adult, and overcoming her anxiety disorder. She hopes that her book, like most of her works of poetry, will help any of her readers who are struggling with mental illness or going through a rough time in thier lives.

Mindscape of a pregnant girl after the death of her lover

Paris, France 1920 AT last! They’ve left! They think that I’m asleep! They think that they can rest from their watch, but I know better, I know that they can’t stop me. Here’s the window! Open the shutters, and there’s the street five stories below! They think I’m a coward, Read more

Susan Taylor Brand

Susan Taylor Brand is a writer and teacher who hails from Northern California. A graduate of UC Irvine, where she majored in English Literature, she was also the campus newspaper’s book critic. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor. Currently a member of Northern Colorado Writers, she is at work on a young adult novel.