After Hours

I’d arrived in Los Angeles two years earlier, on New Year’s Eve, 1979, after completing graduate work at the University of Minnesota and deciding that I wouldn’t survive another midwestern winter. So after a three-day road trip in my ex-husband’s Chevrolet Impala that included striking a deer in South Dakota, Read more

Kareem Tayyar

Kareem Tayyar's work has appeared in publications including Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, and North Dakota Quarterly, and my most recent book, “Keats in San Francisco & Other Poems,” was published in 2022 by Lily Poetry Review Books. His poem, “Visiting My Father in Iran,” received the 2020 Glenna Luschei Poetry Prize from Prairie Schooner, and my coming-of-age novel, “The Prince of Orange County,” received the 2020 Eric Hoffer Prize for Young Adult Fiction.

How Do You Feel About Nudity?

I had been someone’s wife. When he died, I was someone’s widow. I could hardly breathe, carrying the weight of us in me. One pint at a time, Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra soothed, but the feeling of longing took me down, longing for us and longing now for me. Read more

Dianne Blomberg, Ph.D.

Dianne Blomberg is an author/speaker living in Colorado. She’s published in HerStry, Feminine Collective, Across the Margin, Button Eye Review, Alpha Female Society, Dove Tales-Abrazos, Volney Road Review, Krazines, American Writer’s Review, and more. Her essays are in “Best Of” publications and anthologies, she’s authored two children’s books. She is the former President of the Denver Woman’s Press Club. Her work is featured on podcasts. Dianne’s relationship research is cited in Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Family Life, Newsday-New York, The Denver Post and more. Dianne is working on a book of essays, What Else You Got, Girl? And co-writing a sitcom TV-pilot, “Happy Landing.”

Betrayed by Biology

I can’t remember where I was when Father got home that day. Probably, I was somewhere inside the house; maybe I was in the living room. Maybe sitting cross-legged on the dingy, frayed oriental rug that had tufts of cat and dog and probably human hair tangled in its tassels Read more

DB Maddox

I was a clueless kid back then but I always followed my heart; I knew I wanted to be a Writer but I didn't know what that meant, or what my options were. So I became an Editor--it was something that just came naturally to me. Twenty-plus years later, I'm still an Editor. It has served me well, at least in the day-to-day; and when you're in survival mode, just getting through the day is enough. But at roughly the midway mark of my career, and looking up from the precipice of what must have been my 17th relapse, I thought that maybe this was just my destiny, and if so, there simply had to be value in chronicling it. And while my reasons for writing a memoir may have been tenuous and ever-evolving, it was never about catharsis. Instead, by reliving the trauma of my upbringing and the desperation of my youth, I discovered that I had had agency all along, in my own twisted way; and I felt compelled to share that revelation and have spent years searching for a platform to do just that--until I found the Feminine Collective. I invite you to engage therein with this ongoing series of excerpts from my debut memoir, "Constellation of Pleasure: Only the Stars Can Hear Me," a tale unduly tragic, but through which I expect readers will perceive a reflection of themselves to whatever degree, and be empowered.

Red

Hiding. Always hiding. He keeps to dark corners of woodland, ghosting trees, with sharpened blades for claws. Often fractious, taking to gouging lines of discontent within woody bark, leaving imprints of dissatisfaction in his wake: macabre tattoos that speak of moroseness and an unspoken curfew. His having, and then, not Read more

Emma Wells

Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry and prose published with various literary journals and magazines. She is currently writing her fifth novel. Emma won Wingless Dreamer’s Bird Poetry Contest of 2022 and her short story, ‘Virginia Creeper’, was selected as a winning title by WriteFluence Singles Contest in 2021. Recently, Emma won Dipity Literary Magazine’s 2024 Best of the Net Nominations for Fiction with a short story entitled ‘The Voice of a Wildling’. Her poem ‘Rose-Tainted is the winner of the poetry category, Discourse Literary Journal, February 2024 Issue.

Bitten

“Yes, those do appear to be mosquito bites. They’ve swelled up somethin’ fierce. You sure you’re not allergic?” “No. At least, I never have been. I don’t know, everything seems to be hitting me harder since I got this little fella.” “Well, pregnancy can do a lot to the body. Read more

Zach Knowlton

Zach Knowlton (he/him) is a high school English teacher, husband, and father. He lives on the northern coast of California, surrounded by the redwood forest. He teaches at the same school he graduated from, and has started a Creative Writing club on campus. Zach loves reading, writing, teaching, and connecting with others. Although he reads all genres, his favorite is horror. Finally, Zach Knowlton is proud that Feminine Collective is the first publication to print one of his short stories.

I thought I would teach you

It’s not easy to admit that they fell a few more millimeters. That’s what I think when I get out of the shower and face my entire body. I don’t accept counting in centimeters as long as that mirror is mine. As if that would reverse or delay this accursed Read more

Marcelo Candido de Melo

Marcelo Candido de Melo, 57 years old, is Brazilian and lives in São Paulo, the most cosmopolitan city in South America. He had a marketing career in big companies before starting his own publishing house. He realized he was a writer after spending over a decade editing books and telling authors how challenging it was to make a living from literary talent, especially in Brazil, where educational issues have always kept people away from reading. He unintentionally started as a ghostwriter, and projects began to appear, sometimes as a ghostwriter, sometimes telling the story of a person, a family or a company. His first novel was a critical success and was adapted for the theater, but just as production was about to begin, the country entered a new crisis. He is currently working on completing his second novel. In addition to the first one, he has already written 17 other books and publishes two little texts on Instagram every Wednesday. He has two no more children: one is a screenwriter and writer who moved to California, and the other is a university student still eager to discover the secrets of life. He is married to a visual artist and also an amateur actor. Culture is deeply embedded in his life! His inspiration comes from a curiosity about human beings and all complexity of their existence.

Close to Home

Today is a good day to die. The neighbor’s mother is dying next door, fifty feet from us. She has been dying for some days. The son arrived yesterday, though, from Ohio, all red-eyed, sleep deprived, and unshaven, and I happened to be collecting the mail. “Hi, how are you?” I Read more

Myra Slotnick

Myra Slotnick is a queer playwright and activist living in Provincetown, Massachusetts. When Covid struck she became eager to explore other genres, culminating in a collection of stories, and several essays.

The Shipwreck of the Ispolen

For one hundred and twenty-five years, I’ve been nothing more than a watery whisper, dissipating in shifting waves, crumbling to shadowy fragments, perpetually washed upon the sandy shore. My fingers are ghosts stretching longingly and painfully back to Norway, where love was once known. Cruelly, my spirit is trapped here: entrapped Read more

Emma Wells

Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry and prose published with various literary journals and magazines. She is currently writing her fifth novel. Emma won Wingless Dreamer’s Bird Poetry Contest of 2022 and her short story, ‘Virginia Creeper’, was selected as a winning title by WriteFluence Singles Contest in 2021. Recently, Emma won Dipity Literary Magazine’s 2024 Best of the Net Nominations for Fiction with a short story entitled ‘The Voice of a Wildling’. Her poem ‘Rose-Tainted is the winner of the poetry category, Discourse Literary Journal, February 2024 Issue.