For the Girl in Row 5

It’s easy money. Walk slowly, hands behind your back, checking no one is cheating. Up and down the rows of desks, quietly handing out tissues, pens. For a teacher of 5 year olds, exam invigilation with 16 year olds is a breeze. Some children look anxious, one girl is biting Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

If I Was Your Child    

Would you cover me in a coat of armor So my blood didn’t weep If I was your child Would you shield me from the dark The boogeyman that wiggled my doorknob whilst I sleep If I was your child would you smother me with sweet scented well-meaning kisses If Read more

Jacqueline Cioffa

A retired, international model, and celebrity makeup artist. Co-Author of Model Citi Zen, the guide. Founder of http://modelcitizenmakeup.blogspot.com/. Author of numerous prose pieces in various literary magazines. Most recently published in Little Episodes Brainstorms the anthology, among esteemed artists Sadie Frost, Melvin Burgess and Todd Swift.

Zombie Nation

I have met too many friends and foes that say they don’t care about politics. They don’t care about equality, racism, mental illness, sexual harassment, and gun violence shrugging their shoulders brushing off the uncomfortable, the taboo. It’s not happening to me. That’s the poor man’s excuse, cowardice is plain Read more

Jacqueline Cioffa

A retired, international model, and celebrity makeup artist. Co-Author of Model Citi Zen, the guide. Founder of http://modelcitizenmakeup.blogspot.com/. Author of numerous prose pieces in various literary magazines. Most recently published in Little Episodes Brainstorms the anthology, among esteemed artists Sadie Frost, Melvin Burgess and Todd Swift.

Unheard Screaming: Silent Misunderstood Me

Those peering into the lives of those of us who struggle with mental health, perplexed as to why we seem to have potential to live “better” but just continue to make bad choices that impact us negatively and cause us to be of concern to their normal married with children Read more

Kristina Farrow

Kristina is a lover of art, poetry, philosophy, Dostoevsky (and other classic lit), everything French and Japanese, cats, the West Coast and dreams...

Leakage: A Minor Problem

women leak: we do not talk about our leaks: not acceptable dinner conversation: in youth I did not need extra protection, Depends, I had strong elastic muscle: now I’m told, do Kegels: surgery is an option: can we get more extreme? scientific? Pharmaceutical? when all the heart wants is a Read more

Julene Tripp Weaver

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle, WA. Her three poetry books are: truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and a chapbook, Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007). Julene worked for 21 years in AIDS services. She is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her poems can be found online at Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, and Writing in a Woman's Voice. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com and @trippweavepoet on Twitter.

In a Laundry Room on Virgin Gorda

I was on Virgin Gorda, ashore at 8:00 a.m. doing my last loads of laundry before the trip south. Out of the wash and into the dryers, I was waiting to start folding. In came the cleaning lady, an older black woman, local, probably in her late sixties. “Good morning,” Read more

Jennifer M. Smith

Jennifer M. Smith is an author and an adventurer. Together with her husband, she has sailed over 40,000 miles around the world on their sailboat Green Ghost and she has plenty of stories to tell. She is working on a book about her ocean voyages but she is frequently distracted by other creative non-fiction short stories and micro-fiction stories that pop into her head and make a lot of noise until they are released through her pen or her keyboard.

Grief: Whose Business is it?

“So Your Mom Died 2 Years Ago? It’s Time To Move On.” In October of 1986, when I was 11 – my mother’s father died. My grandfather. I remember my mom telling me to wash my hair well because there would be many people at the Irish Catholic wake that Read more

Creating a Feminist Future

My daughter started Kindergarten this year, and in the fourth week of school, a little boy kicked her in the face while she was playing on the monkey bars. It was the same little boy who kicked her best friend in the face while she was playing on the monkey Read more

Lauren Halsted

Lauren Halsted Burroughs teaches English at Cuyamaca Community College in San Diego, CA. She began her career in writing as an editorial assistant at Surfing Girl Magazine almost two decades ago, and has worked as a journalist, grant writer, online content writer, and has dabbled in research and academic publishing. She is happiest when spending time with her two young children, family, and friends and/or playing in the ocean.