A Love Deserved

Sebastian points to the letter T, alone in the center of the child-sized magnetic white board. T for Tyler. T for tired. I sit criss-cross applesauce next to my four-year-old charge, who is excited and proud he’s found the letter that’s been missing from the set for days, and glance Read more

Lindsay N Marshall

Lindsay N Marshall is a student pursuing her MFA in Fiction at Arcadia University. She helps care for children with special needs by day, and writes about women who fight back by night. Currently querying her first novel, she’s previously written pop culture features and personal essays for newspapers and online magazines. When not writing, she’s often found rewatching Supernatural or crowdsurfing at a punk show.

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.”

4/14/20

I dictate a message to you on fb – explaining how much I still love you, and that I never meant to hurt you. I do another one, to another lover…. very similar, but different. Mute/I am a wrecking ball. Unmute/fight with the husband: you were behind the barn smoking… Read more

Elisabeth Horan

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.

Thunder

Rolls like a kettle-drumon the other side of the passwhere my lover once livedin a plain wooden houseunder a sky that carried weightin its splendor and its solace We saved hours underneaththe dogwood tree, silentholding hands, lightly old-fashionedlovers bent on listening asthe yellow-billed cuckoo sangsadder than the rain Everything I Read more

Doug Hoekstra

Doug Hoekstra is a Chicago-bred, Nashville-based writer and musician, educated at DePaul University in the Windy City (B.A.) and Belmont University in the Music City (M.Ed.), whose prose, poetry, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. His first set of stories, Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, was published in April 2006 and earned an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) for Best Short Fiction (Bronze Medal). Ten Seconds In-Between, his latest collection of short stories, was published in June, 2021 on Better than Starbuckspress. Hoekstra has also worked extensively as a singer-songwriter with eight albums of original material on labels released on both sides of the pond, propelling touring throughout the U.S. and Europe, at bookstores, coffeehouses, clubs, libraries, pubs, festivals, radio stations, and castles; solo and with combos in tow. Musical highlights have included Nashville Music Award and Independent Music Award nominations, as well as many groovy happenings. 2021 also brings a new album of music, The Day Deserved. ("A lot of people write songs, Hoekstra writes five minute worlds" - Wired Magazine).

A Weekend with You

We spent a weekend together. I was who you wanted and you were who I wanted. But it wasn’t real. There was an overwhelming feeling of desire and lust that I couldn’t get rid of. You took care of that. And I took care of you. But I didn’t account Read more

Krystal Beatriz Galvis

Krystal Beatriz Galvis, born and raised in San Diego, California, is a writer fascinated with magic, fantasy, and darkness. She is a MFA graduate student at San Diego State University studying creative writing. Outside from writing short stories, she researches any Latinx fables or myths and writes small poems on her Instagram page under the hashtag #krystalg.

A Blur of Selfishness and Orgasms

This cannot be it. Don’t get her wrong, she likes some of it. The sound is awesome. Sounds, she thinks, deliriously lost in the world she crafts in her head as she hopes to get just a little wet. His breathing is short; he’s gasping into her ear, her neck, Read more

Lorel Rea

*Lorel Rea* is a fourth-year English student at Northern Kentucky University studying creative writing. She is obsessed with reading; anything that contains dragons, women with swords, or LGTBQIA+ characters is already on her TBR shelf. Though currently drowning in a sea of fantasy worlds, Lorel tries to keep the daydreaming to a minimum. She lives in Northern Kentucky, though her permeant address should be changed to the public library where you can most often find her with tea and an open laptop.