By Lorraine Waldau     The hanging stretches a full twenty-eight feet over the bare museum wall. Colors dripping at different lengths wound around shapes almost obscuring the words. Coming closer, the dripping fabric wrapped around words reveals itself. Thousands and thousands of colored and worn shoelaces. Everyone has at one time, or another worn shoelaces, haven’t they? The words ...

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  By Janet L. Boyd Membership Coordinator of Women Who Write, Inc. When my kitchen phone rang one afternoon in 1993, I wasn’t surprised to hear my brother’s voice on the line. He traveled extensively for work, owned an early version of the now ubiquitous mobile phone, and often called me from the road. “Hey,” he said, “I’m in a ...

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  By Katie Odom   I don’t know how to start. I stare at the blank paper between my hands. I pick up the pen, hold it loosely, hover the point over the paper, and set the pen down.  I study the grain of the wood within the table. Lines swirl, curl, and flow from this side to that. My ...

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  By Janel Boyd   When I am an old(er) woman, I shall wear yoga pants with impunity and t-shirts of the softest Pima cotton and flip flops every day. I’ll pull my coarse white hair into a ponytail without combing it. Or make a thick braid to fit under the sloppy straw hat I’ll wear when I garden in ...

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  By Irene Sulyevich First published in Landslide Lit(erary) publication on Medium.com (Note: on the Medium.com platform, the writer retains full rights to her story. Reprints, thus, are permitted) When a war in Ukraine began two weeks ago, I got a lot of calls and messages asking how I feel about this conflict. While appreciating the thoughtfulness and support from ...

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  By Alisa Childress   First published on An Injustice! On Medium.com (Note: on the Medium.com platform, the writer retains full rights to her story. Reprints, thus, are permitted) https://medium.com/an-injustice/scotus-and-the-future-of-women-thoughts-from-a-progressive-in-a-red-state-2deb11a83987   When my son was born, over 19 years ago, my mother, as all proud new grandmothers do, came to the hospital to see us. I was induced overnight Friday ...

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  by Alisa Richie Childress My dad was terrified for months before turning seventy years old. His birthday is in mid-October, amidst back to school and Halloween and just before the other, bigger holidays. Because of this, I was never consistent about celebrating him. Some years, I would fix dinner for him and my stepmom. Some years, I would buy ...

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by Pam Lafollette   As I work on revision #437 of my novel-in-progress, I reflect on what it took to get this manuscript to where it is today. My first novel was 485,000 words: about the size of War and Peace and riddled with the inherent mistakes of a novice—telling-not-showing, meandering prose, lack of conflict, lack of pacing, overuse of ...

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by Kimberly Crum Exploring point-of-view in your writing     “I have wanted you to see out of my eyes so many times.” ~Elizabeth Berg~ Perhaps, you write creative nonfiction — personal essay, memoir, literary journalism. You use fictional techniques to create true stories. But the first-person pronoun, at times, feels a bit narcissistic. And, you tire of the relentless ...

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by Jessica Hildebrand   May all beings attain happiness. Death in the time of pandemic. Of course. It is happening hourly in hospitals all over the world as humanity faces the Covid-19 virus, which seems to take people indiscriminate of gender, race, age or ethnicity. Doctors, nurses and caregivers work exhaustively and selflessly around the clock to save as many ...

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