Dear Active Shooter

Dear Active Shooter, Hi. It’s me. You don’t know me. I don’t think you do, anyway. No- you don’t know me. But somehow- some way – here we are. We are here. You have a loaded war weapon, and I’m here shopping or dancing or praying or well… just living Read more

WAR

I can’t keep Them straight in my head anymore- The shootings. The victims. The gunmen. The guns used. Vegas. The hotel. The windows of the hotel. From the window of the hotel. The concert. The nightclub. They were dancing. They were young. They were shot. Hiding in the bathroom. At Read more

Breathe

Breathe. The simple act of pulling the world in and swallowing. When I was a kid, I used to hold my breath underwater for 74 seconds. I remember that number clearly because it was the neighborhood record. It was a feat to balloon my chest and deprive my body of Read more

Amye Archer

Amye Archer holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her memoir, Fat Girl, Skinny, was named runner-up for the Red Hen Press Nonfiction Manuscript Award, and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has two poetry collections: BANGS and A Shotgun Life, both published by Big Table Publishing. Amye’s work has appeared in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Hippocampus, Mothers Always Write, Nailed Magazine, PMS: Poem Memoir Story, PANK, and Provincetown Arts. She is the creator of The Fat Girl Blog.

4 Steps to Survive an Active Shooter Scenario

The tragic deaths at the hands of crazed gunman remind us that we live in a very dangerous world. Because there are so many terrorist attacks and active shooter scenarios, I often get asked, “What should I do if, God forbid, I find myself in the middle of an attack?” It’s Read more

Michele Rigby Assad

After obtaining a masters degree in Arab Studies at Georgetown University, Michele applied—along with hundreds of others from the university--to work for the CIA. After a long and grueling hiring process and a year of intensive training, she became an intelligence officer for the National Clandestine Service, the covert (operational) arm of the Agency. Serving for a decade as a counterterrorism officer, Michele worked in all of the awful places you hope you’ll never visit, including Iraq during the height of the war. To date, Michele has traveled to 45 countries, lived in six of those, and has a lot of crazy stories to tell about life overseas. While working for the CIA, Michele initially decried the traits that made her different from senior male officers, but later realized that these traits were what made her a great intelligence officer (empathy, intuition, strong interpersonal skills). Now she’s on a mission to show women that they have the elements to be a Femme Fatale—the incredibly intelligent and operationally astute woman that gets stuff done. After years of service to her country, Michele has left the undercover life behind and now works as an international management consultant focused on Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. She has a more “normal” life now and a lot more time to do the things she loves: writing, cooking, traveling for pleasure, walking on the beach—and most of all, inspiring others!