WHEN YOU ARRIVE

You have wandered this road for a long time.  You have left versions of yourself along the way, like sluffed off skins of earlier snakes. There are times when longing pulls you back to examine the scraps of tissue paper skin that hint at the nature of these other selves. Read more

Katherine West

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective and Southwest Word Fiesta. New Verse News nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.

Mirror Talk

Be yourself if you want to kill all demons inside your head. My therapist advises. Talk to yourself in the mirror. I look at my reflection, its mouth opens, wanting to start before me. But the voice is not mine. Yes. You heard it right. I am Miryam. The pretty Read more

Sarwa Azeez

Sarwa Azeez is a Kurdish poet, translator, and Fulbright scholar with an MA in English Literature at Leicester University and an MFA from Nebraska-Lincoln University. She is a Pushcart prize nominee and her debut poetry collection, Remote, was published in the UK by 4Word in 2019. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Parentheses Journal, Collateral Journal, Writing for A Woman's Voice, the other side of hope, Genocide Studies and Prevention Journal, Kurdish Center for Studies, Wingless Dreamer, and elsewhere. Sarwa's writing draws on her childhood memories of wartime Iraq, where she grew up reading by the flickering light of kerosene lanterns, and searches for the beauty in a war-torn world while seeking to define identity and confront issues of equal gender representation and violence in male-dominant communities. In what little free time she has, Sarwa applies her knowledge of English, Arabic, Kurdish, and Farsi by practicing the subtle art of translating poetry.

Plan B

It’s 2:04 a.m. No more denial. I’ve got exactly eighteen hours and fifty-six minutes. Okay. I’m in the Dark Web. Now what do I do? Take a breath. Think. Maybe I should go to a forum. No. Too many crazy people. And spies too. They might figure out what I’m Read more

Maeve Flanagan

Maeve Flanagan is a writer in Los Angeles. She has a background in philosophy and enjoys writing stories that explore the intersection of technology and the human condition.

A Bald Girl

My mom had it. I know she had hair in all of the pictures of her before I was born. I know she had hair when I was little. I know she got her hair done at Menage e Trois Coiffers on Burton Way, and I didn’t know what “Menage Read more

Sarah M. Levy

A Los Angeles native, Sarah M. Levy was an English teacher in NYC for 21 years. She is a founding member of the experimental theater company The New York Neo-Futurists, and a recipient of The NY Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Performance Art Production. She has performed her work on Selected Shorts and at The Green Room 42, and she has been published in 225.Plays: By The New York Neo-Futurists from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Sarah received her MA in English Literature from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and her BA in English Language and Literature from The University of Chicago. A member of The Writers Studio at The Center for Fiction, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

Angel’s Eye

A lone woman wades through sea green laps of city-grade fountain water under the specter of the Angel’s eye. At noon she folds prayer rugs of teal, sapphire, and gold in neat stacks; hangs rosary beads onto a wooden board bearing crooked nails. Seeks Jesus’s son through spoken word and Read more

Carolyn McAuliffe

Carolyn McAuliffe resides in Southern California with her husband Mike and son Michael. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. Carolyn’s work has appeared in a Wising-Up Press Anthology, The Motherhood Muse, Califragile, and From Whispers To Roars

I Saw Charles Darwin On Tinder

I take the Plan B at 8am sharp in the Walgreens’ parking lot. He says he’ll split the cost with me, but we never talk again. I blink, and I’m 15, ravenous, researching male species.        The toll to impregnate their mate. Of course he drowns his Anas Read more

Ericka Russell

Ericka Russell is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. After obtaining her BA at Ohio University, she received her MFA from Western Kentucky University. Ericka now pursues college instruction, photography, and outdooring.

The Catalogue of Men

Before sunrise I’m flipping through a catalogue of men,  A parade of men looking for relationships, super closeups, Guys in ball caps, blurry headed, sideways, in bed, crazy  Faces with monsters, in cubicles, beside lattice fences,  Strapped into car seats, in the shower, in private airplanes  And parking lots, with Read more

Cynthia Good

Cynthia Good is an award-winning poet, journalist, former TV news anchor, and author of the chapbook, What We Do with Our Hand published last fall by Finishing Line Press. She has written seven books and launched two magazines. Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in numerous journals including Tupelo Quarterly, Terminus Magazine, Waxing and Waning. Her full-length manuscript, In The Thaw of Day, has just been accepted for publication.

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.”