I thought I would teach you

It’s not easy to admit that they fell a few more millimeters. That’s what I think when I get out of the shower and face my entire body. I don’t accept counting in centimeters as long as that mirror is mine. As if that would reverse or delay this accursed Read more

Marcelo Candido de Melo

Marcelo Candido de Melo, 57 years old, is Brazilian and lives in São Paulo, the most cosmopolitan city in South America. He had a marketing career in big companies before starting his own publishing house. He realized he was a writer after spending over a decade editing books and telling authors how challenging it was to make a living from literary talent, especially in Brazil, where educational issues have always kept people away from reading. He unintentionally started as a ghostwriter, and projects began to appear, sometimes as a ghostwriter, sometimes telling the story of a person, a family or a company. His first novel was a critical success and was adapted for the theater, but just as production was about to begin, the country entered a new crisis. He is currently working on completing his second novel. In addition to the first one, he has already written 17 other books and publishes two little texts on Instagram every Wednesday. He has two no more children: one is a screenwriter and writer who moved to California, and the other is a university student still eager to discover the secrets of life. He is married to a visual artist and also an amateur actor. Culture is deeply embedded in his life! His inspiration comes from a curiosity about human beings and all complexity of their existence.

They Could Guillotine a Baby’s Hand: A Foster Mother’s Story

The narrow wooden bench creaks and bows every time someone sits next to me. It arcs so deeply when a heavy man sits in the very middle, two feet away from my tight clasp of the built-in armrest at the end, that I fear the old wooden fibers are spreading Read more

Sara Mesa Wright

Sara Mesa Wright lives with her husband and five children in central Michigan. She writes about the dark reality of foster care and adoption because she’s been called a ‘saint’, and her children ‘lucky’, one time too many. She writes and blogs under a pseudonym to protect the privacy of her children at fosterfurther.blogspot.com.

When the Parent Becomes the Child: And Then There Was One

I’ve never minded solitude. For a writer, it’s a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a particular kind of loneliness. —Laurie Graham My mother is leaving me. Her mind allows her to tell me about my favorite stuffed animal when I was three, my Effalunt, but Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

A Letter To My Child Not Yet Born

Dear Baby, I don’t know if you will ever be real, but here are some things I want to say to you. I’ve never really wanted a child. Well, that’s not true. You are wanted. But the idea of having a child—the need to have a child—has never been part Read more

Julia Nusbaum

Julia Nusbaum is the founder of HerStry, a literary magazine and writing community for women. Her writing has been published in Windrose Magazine, The New Interstice, and on the My Bible App where she wrote a devotional series about the intersection of faith, bodies and sex. She is a 2014 graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee where she studied social justice and gender and sexuality. Julia currently lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but hails from the flat parries of Illinois. You can become part of the HerStry community at herstryblg.com or follow Julia on instagram @jules.nusbaum or @herstryblg.

Happy Mom’s Wine Club

Drink wine: Wine is classy Smart moms drink wine Exhausted moms drink wine If you wear slippers and pajamas, then it’s cute There are detractors, of course, including: When did it becomes acceptable for mothers to drink every night? If you loved your kids you wouldn’t do it What do Read more

Tiffany Meuret

Tiffany is a writer, mother, and OCD sufferer from Phoenix, Arizona. Her work has been published or is forthcoming with Shoreline of Infinity, MoonPark Review, Collective Unrest, Ellipsis Zine, and others. Find her on Twitter @TMeuretBooks. Talking points are good coffee and small dogs.

All At Once

It was winter. The boy…young man…child… (he was all at once) sat on the frozen ground in the middle of the football field looking up at the clear night sky. Black-blue background dotted with the white pinprick specks of stars. The moon was gibbous, waxing. The boy lifted his right Read more

Victoria Addesso

Vicki Addesso has worked in various fields over the years, full-time and part-time. In between family life and bill-paying endeavors, she works at writing. Co-author of the collaborative memoir Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013), she has had work published in Gravel Magazine, Barren Magazine, The Writer, Sleet Magazine, Damselfly Press, Feminine Collective, and Tweetspeak Poetry. A personal essay is included in the anthology My Body My Words, edited by Loren Kleinman and Amye Archer. You can follow Vicki on Twitter @VickiAddesso.

The Fate Of The Overly Optimistic Mother

When I was in college, I found a dreamy study abroad program. Sadly, my college budget didn’t support a trip to Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and Munich even if I stretched my ramen noodle rations. However, a couple of decades later, I was finally going to see the cities I had Read more

Christine Watkins Davies

Christine Watkins Davies is a writer, wife, mother, and integral life and executive coach. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her wife and daughter and a slew of pets. She is an advocate for gay rights and adoption, however, as a raging introvert, she prefers to write about such things instead of screaming at rallies.

When the Bomb Sounds

My uncle has been sending me letters. He’s been telling me about his time in Vietnam. How, even though it was just a tiny percentage of his life, it is a time he never forgets. He says he’s a tormented artist. He says he’s tried to write about it. He’s Read more

Sara Dutilly

Sara Dutilly studied creative writing at High Point University and today she stays at home with her three children, writing and wrangling and finding countless surprises along both paths. Her work has appeared in r.k.v.ry., Quarterly Journal, Mothers Always Write, and PopSugar. A few years ago her husband purchased her a website for Mother's Day and she's been writing her mothering stories at www.haikuthedayaway.com.