Tag: sexual assault

The Bus Ride

Judith Staff

Evening afoot she waits at the stop. Mind elsewhere, on her day, or merely tired, distant. Boarding the empty bus, relieved for warmth, quiet. Town’s edge – but what is happening? Where are you going? She demands, nearly screaming now, You should have turned back there! The bus lurches down 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.

Cowboy in Red is Cheating

Jerri Jerreat

1: The Heroine A funeral is lace, carnations, pinks, and old flesh. For Emma, dressing hurriedly for a grandmother’s send-off, it was going to be a showdown. Emma frowned as she did up pearl buttons on her white blouse. The yellow shirt had been too happy; the pink, too gentle. Read more

Jerri Jerreat

Jerri Jerreat’s fiction has appeared in The Yale Review Online, The New Quarterly, The Penmen Review, The Ottawa Arts Review, The Antigonish Review, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, The Dalhousie Review, Room, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Everyday Fiction and in four anthologies: Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers (World Weaver Press): Solarpunk Winters; in Nevertheless: Tesseracts 21 (Edge Publishing); and in a collection of international eco fiction, Solarpunk: Dalla Disperazione Alla Strategia, (Future Fiction). Her play was a finalist in the Newmarket National Ten Minute Play Festival, 2019.

Ode to the Girl with the Mermaid Hair

Sophie Winik

That girl, She was young, caring, kind, but naive. She was shy, hair as long as a mermaid, eyes filled with hope for the future. She was fifteen, beginning the process of figuring herself out, the person she wants to be. He was one year older, Dirty-blonde hair, blue eyes, Read more

Sophie Winik

I was a writer for I Am That Girl, a place that helps empower young girls. A place that was so safe I knew I could write about personal things and feel safe in doing so. Not only that but a place where my words would make a difference. And that is something I continue to be passionate about. To share my truth, even if it means I have to show my own vulnerability, and make a difference. To use my voice as an outlook for others. To help inspire and encourage others to share their truth. If I have made a difference to one single person, I know I have done good.

My Good Name

Crystal Good

“Except my name. I’ll give up all that other stuff, but only if I get to keep my name. I’ve worked too hard for it, your honor.” ~ Tina Turner My mother married Ron Good when I was in kindergarten. Shortly thereafter, he started sexually abusing me. In the second Read more

Crystal Good

Crystal Good is hard to put in just one box. She prefers: artist, advocate and entrepreneur. She is a member of the Affrilachian (African American Appalachian) Poets, a group of writers and artists whose creations and existence combat the erasure of African American identity in the Appalachian region, an Irene McKinney Scholar, and the author of Valley Girl. She is the founder and CEO of Mixxed Media , a government relations consulting firm that leverages social & media engagement strategies for mission-driven organizations. Crystal holds the completely made up but totally real office of "Social Media Senator" for the Digital District Of West Virginia whose platform encourages digital and political literacy. Artist::Advocate:: crystalgood.net Entrepreneur:: themixxedmedia.com

Shame On You

Judith Staff

“Drunk. Hot. Easy. A cocktease….“ No. Fuck that. Fuck them. Do not bathe in the steam rising off sordid pools they lured you into, those filled with twisted recollections of reality. Coveting your butterfly touch and those sexy, soft eyes as coat hooks on which to hang their cloaks of 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.

Social Media “Blackout” Proves Women Will not be Silenced

Mary Novaria

“Tomorrow, female blackout…” A writer friend sent the missive Saturday evening. The next day, women were to change their Facebook profile pictures to a simple, black square to illustrate to men what a day without women would look like. The scheme was billed as an effort to draw awareness to Read more

Mary Novaria

Mary Novaria's is a two-time Writer's Digest award winner whose work has been featured in Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Spirituality & Health, Cosmopolitan, Feminine Collective, FF2 Media, HuffPost, and elsewhere. She and her husband are empty nesters who live in the mountains of Colorado with their rescue dog, Rooney. She is currently working on a novel.

Destroying Patriarchy with its Gift

Sara Easterly

Why am I so triggered by the Kavanaugh news? Why can’t I pull myself away from it all? “Did someone ever sexually assault you?” my husband worries over tea this morning after I wake up at 4:16 am, feeling helpless and unable to sleep. “No,” I say. “But I know Read more

Sara Easterly

Sara Easterly lives in the Pacific Northwest. She has published various articles and essays on motherhood, as well as a children’s book, and is currently working on a mother-daughter memoir. Previously Sara led one of the largest chapters of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and she was recognized as 2009 SCBWI Member of the Year. Visit her at www.saraeasterly.com

Why Did He Stop?

Kristin Garth

I ask myself a lot  why did he stop? Did I make too much noise? Did he hear other boys stir, their sleeping bags flop, anticipating eavesdrops? Too dark to see what he was turning me into beneath black nylon, stars. Do choked sobs travel far? A body he pulled from a Read more

Kristin Garth

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola, Florida. She is a knee sock aficionado and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked the pages of Luna Luna, Occulum, Anti-Heroin Chic, Ghost City Review, Drunk Monkeys, TERSE, Journal and many other publications. Her chapbook Pink Plastic House is available through maverickduckpress.com