Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
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 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.
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
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.
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 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’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'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.
When I was born, my mother clipped my wings. Just the red ones. I flapped and tapped on my incubator for six weeks until they released me into her arms, a pink infant in knots and a woman with scissors up her sleeve. Life as a cardstock canary, a polymer Read more
Angel Rosen is a poet living near Pittsburgh. She can be found at open mic nights, drag shows or writing poetry in the dark. She is passionate about mental health, queer friendship, and Amanda Palmer's art community. Her writing can be found at angelrosen.com.
I miss that stupid ache — Fiona Apple Floating in a slick of oil – arms out Funneling the pollution through my hair Mermaid on her back — I protect the brain Coral. I am myself: a filthy Exxon liar Exposed, naked bulge of plastic waste; Daliesque my fans and Read more
Elisabeth Horan is a poet mother student lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She writes to survive and survives to write - We are all battling something. Let's support each other. Elisabeth enjoys riding horses and caring for her cats, chickens, goats and children (not necessarily in that order). She teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.
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 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.
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 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.”
