Tag: Women Empowerment

Stumbling Block

Susan Shea

When he found you, you were like a caretaker of living vines. You walked free up and down rows of collected lives, learning their ways, seeing the value in their twists and turns. He licked his lips, shook his jailhouse key in anticipation of the mayhem he would bring your Read more

Susan Shea

Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was born in New York City, and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. She feels like she is coming alive again, able to return to writing poetry. Susan has been published in Plainsongs, Pudding, The Bluebird Word, and The Agape Review. Recently Susan has had poems accepted for Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Bookends Review, Exstasis, Poetry Breakfast, and four anthologies by The Moonstone Arts Center:The Weight of Motherhood, by Wingless Dreamer: Darkness Within Me, by Pure Slush Books: Lifespan Series:Achievement, and by Poet’s Choice: Nostalgia.

How Do You Feel About Nudity?

Dianne Blomberg, Ph.D.

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.”

ARMED

Susan Shea

I didn’t want to raise an unarmed saint after seeing my mother wear that role, always waiting for some relief like an unsheared sheep, she walked her muddy field alone until she fell from the weight of her own worsted wool, unable to feed herself. I was powerless then but Read more

Susan Shea

Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was born in New York City, and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. She feels like she is coming alive again, able to return to writing poetry. Susan has been published in Plainsongs, Pudding, The Bluebird Word, and The Agape Review. Recently Susan has had poems accepted for Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Bookends Review, Exstasis, Poetry Breakfast, and four anthologies by The Moonstone Arts Center:The Weight of Motherhood, by Wingless Dreamer: Darkness Within Me, by Pure Slush Books: Lifespan Series:Achievement, and by Poet’s Choice: Nostalgia.

Women Warriors

Megan Coleman

We are women warriors, whether it is grocery lines or picket lines, we are fighting the patriarchy just by standing up and being present in our lives. Using our intuition, crying together, picking each other up, lifting each other up from the ground that burns to swallow us whole, giving Read more

Megan Coleman

Megan Coleman has been writing from the womb and is an emerging poet in Chattanooga, TN. Five of her poems appear in Elephant Journal (2017), and she is featured in Ordinary Madness Magazine (2017), Vocal Magazine (2017), finalist in the Fortnight Eyewear contest (2017), Visera (2012), and the winner in poetry in Chattanooga Writer's Guild contests in 2003 and 2004. She has given readings at Barking Legs and Mudpie Cafe in Chattanooga. She also has a B.A. in Women's Studies.

Gypsy Goddess

Katherine Silke

You’re a gypsy when it comes to life and love… what with your crazed desires your lofty ideas your wild push and pull ~ your wandering essence knows no rest. Your feet are forever on the ground, ensconced in the finery that suits you best, be it stilettos or sneakers Read more

Katherine Silke

Katherine Silke has been a writer and stay-at-home mother since 1996, working in local journalism on a part-time and freelance basis while raising her two daughters. Prior to having her children, she taught middle-school English at an alternative school in Spring, Texas. A resident of Florida for the past 20 years, Katherine is a breast cancer survivor who collaborates with her hometown hospital in educating women on breast health and self care. She has just completed her first novel and is working on her second, in addition to dipping her toes in poetry writing.

Phenomenal Beauty: Burned and Thriving

Yadira Carranza

I was 9-months-old when my life turned upside down. It was  a couple of days before Christmas when a fire started on the first floor of the apartment building my family and I lived in. My mother was pregnant again and worried for our safety. She decided to go thru Read more

Yadira Carranza

Yadira G Carranza was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. The middle daughter of a blended family, she was 9 months of age when she suffered major burns to her body. Despite this, she was able to thrive. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in El Sereno, California. She was in the Academic Decathlon from 1992-1994, Student Body Vice President in 1993 and Historian in 1994. In 1996, she had her first son Gabriel. In 2000, she relocated to Zacatecas, Mexico where she studied Business Management. In 2004, she married Marco Méndez. In 2006, she graduated from April Love Makeup Academy. In 2014, she became a Notary Public. In 2015, she became a GlossiGirl model.

Running with Scissors

Julie Anderson

The first time I held a pair of scissors I was in first grade. My teacher, Ms. Bebe oversaw the scissor proceedings with solemn gravity. “Children always remember to wrap the palm of your hand around the blades of your scissors. Keep the blades pointed away from your heart. Your 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.