“The Remarkable Life of a Celebrity Mountain Lioness” by Tina Plottel
“my swift nights powered by / Starbucks are behind me.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
Tag: women writers
“Retreat” by Amita Basu
“I stand at the corner hailing autorickshaws. Many are ferrying schoolchildren, plastic sacks full of produce, five-litre gas cylinders, or the drivers’ wives holding stacked egg-trays bound for grocers.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“For Thea” by Linda Lacy
Nate turns me toward him, my round belly the bumper between us, his brown eyes plead with me. “Everyone has evacuated. We have to go now. Please.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“New Year’s Day” by Sharon Y. Sim
Microfiction by Sharon Y. Sim
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“Murder in the Dark” by F. J. Bergmann
She came out of the woods with nothing but a blanket sprayed with white and silver paint #F. J. Bergmann #TheMetaworker
#MetaworkerMonday
“Beauty Defined” by Alexis Watson
“Your autumn red curls, wrapped in Nigerian print, crowned your head like royalty. Africa hung from your earlobes, swayed in pride.”
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“Game of Interludes” by Patricia Ann Bowen
“He told me how the image of that clear cold gin sliding past my red lips and down my throat had driven him nearly mad with desire.”
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The Metaworker Podcast – In the Willow Garden by Isabel O’Hara Walsh
Episode Description: Matthew, Elena, Mel, and Cerid talk with Isabel O’Hara Walsh about her short fiction piece “In the Willow Garden”. Content Warning: We discuss …
“The Furrowing” by Julie Allyn Johnson
I asked about her yearnings, her desires, as I suspected they might, perhaps, mesh with my own. It was worth a try, an attempt at some sort of shared, miraculous
camaraderie.
The Scream by Nikola Sojka
I want to scream until my voice blistersAround the hot cinders of the words I spitI burn out next to the Sun and SisterWhere my …
The Gift by E.B. Cotenord
Trigger Warning: sexual themes and abuse In my career as a sex worker, I accept gifts with poise and grace. It’s an odd twist in …
“Out of Body” by Liza Olson
I am lying flat on the ground in a quiet living room in a quiet home in the kind of quiet suburb everyone’s at least …
Three Microfictions by Ashley McCurry
My Friends and I Started Having Premonitions About Future Lovers Sonia dreamt of being sawed in half by a mustached magician, rugged steel grinding rosewood …
“Misplaced Affections” by Sinclaire Dickinson
A golden retriever of a womanjust met and she’s practically sheddingin your lapshe steps away from packing heroverstuffed bagwell-meaning but not seeing boundaries that should …
“Susan” by Holly Day
I stood and watched you sleeping, hadstood there watching for nearly five minutes inthe shadow of the hallway for nearly five minutes of circustime before I …
“Arizona” by Zoë Blaylock
Emerging writer Zoë Blaylock was educated in the school of hard knocks and droll encounters but credentialed by Harvard. She works in research/healthcare ethics in …
“That Damn Selfie” by Laurel Osterkamp
If only Joyce hadn’t taken that damn selfie. Her and Tate, laughing at a truck stop in Mexico, drinking beer with lime, his cotton t-shirt …
“Another Life” by Helen Nancy Meneilly
Helen Nancy Meneilly is an Irish poet whose work explores issues of identity, language, and womanhood. She is currently studying for her MA in Creative …
“Alligators to Ashes” by Margaret S Mandell
Prologue to a Memoir Based on Love Letters to my Dead Husband By Margaret S. Mandell Sunday, December 10, 2017 My Dearest Love: October 2015. …
“Fever Dream” by Rebecca M Ross
Rona piles rice from path to porch like snowdrifts sprinkled with crayon colored carrots, peas, corn– until the guardrail disappears under an ever-growing mountain of …
“Text Me When You Get Home” by Helen Nancy Meneilly
night falls like a brick. urgent tongue of wind stuck to the back of my neck, hair wrapped around my throat. fist of keys in …
“Inaccessible” by Connie Woodring
I was afraid of my abusive and controlling ex-husband, but I didn’t know this until 10 years after I divorced him. I wrote hidden poems, …
“How to Use the Supermarket When You Are Losing Your Mind” by Rebecca M Ross
When in a supermarket in a town not your own do not start screaming “Where are the olives? Where are the fucking olives?” as you …
“What Lay Beneath” by Christine Yount Jones
In the sweltering summer of 1966, I have a kitten who will not cooperate under the Arizona sun that glares at me from its cloudless …
“I’ve Barely Been to College” by Kailey Tucker
Autumn snapped my spine like the sudden flash of a spark, waking up the dark. She brought rain and left me blooming, treading my fresh soles on top of …
“Dog Joy” by Judy Guilliams-Tapia
I am sitting on my meditation cushion, cross-legged and with eyes closed, warmed by the afternoon sun shining through the glass patio door in front …
“Plastic Hearts” by Chella Courington
At fifteen Anne bought her first action figure—Wonder Woman. When she saw her on television in her blue starry shorts, legs rising out of red …
“Rare” by Joanne Howard
Two a.m., well into her night shift at the NICU, was never a good time to receive a call on her cell. “He’s gone,” Jason’s …
“Pandemic Yoga” by Judith Beth Cohen
At the Senior Center, we challenge stereotypes about old ladies. We practice yogaoutdoors for “social distance.” If it starts to drizzle, we ignore it. If …
“The Calling” by Christina Eagen
without askingearthquakes rumbled to announce thearrival of mountains rivers roared to forewarn rocksof their ravage winds howled to demand fishermenback to shore wildfires raged to …
“So Many Ways to Live” by Victoria Woolf Bailey
When that moment arrives(by car, by bus, by daybreak) We live in it like a house(condo, apartment, tent down by the river) Imagining we may …
“In the Willow Garden” by Isabel O’Hara Walsh
Down in the willow garden, where me and my true love did meet,There we sat a-courting, my love fell off to sleep – “Rose Connelly,” …
“In the Kingdom of Songora” by Linda McMullen
James was a senior when I was a freshman at Salem North High School; I fell in love with him when I heard he’d persuaded …
“Abracadabra” by Christina Marable
The man I loved as my grandfather was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered man who carried a fake ear in his back pocket. With his indigo …
Microfiction by Megha Nayar
Grievances David calls as I’m retiring for the night. “You really need to stop spoiling that dog, Mom!” he begins without preamble when I pick …
“In Between” by Kelly Claytor
Are you dead, Maria? One Hour It seems so. Seven Days Their black clothes. Their black veils. Their white handkerchiefs, dry in their pockets. None …
“Before” by Margaret Krusinga
Margaret Krusinga lives on sixty acres she and her husband manage loosely for wildlife. Diagnosed with MS in 1976, she graduated college under a cloud, …
“Tethered” by Sarette Danae
His is a lariat love, beginning with a wobbleAs it starts to unwind. Then stretching fastInto a wide-spreading circle, swinging wild,Arcing high, landing without warning,Just …
“One Learns Ruthlessly” by Lydia Storm
“And I learned, gentlemen. Alas, one learns when one has to. One learns when one wants a way out. One learns ruthlessly.” —Franz Kafka, “A …
“Brutal Roux” by Elyse Jancosko
Becca add morebutter Becca. That’s no way tomake a roux. Don’t just measure on a whim.Your flour and fat. Or fluid and fault.Meat drippings, maybe. …
“Bird Calls over Puget Sound” by Sarette Danae
There is no chirping from gulls, no chatter back and forth,No songs at sunrise or ushering in night. No lonely callsFor a lover to echo …
“Running on Empty” by Melissent Zumwalt
June 1999 Bzz…Bzz…Bzz… My alarm sounds off, 2:00 a.m. A rude but expected awakening. Rolling onto my side, out of bed, I slump upright. From …
“Tenderness” by Mary Paulson
Through the eye of a dream,the round pit of a binocular opening,I recognize myselfstanding in front of a stranger,his gun barrel pressedagainst the bone between …
“Two Gates For Ghostly Dreams” by Dawn Bratton
That motherlode of Sun right thereliterally blasting me in the face with its gloryit’s so far away (1 au, to be exact), but all this …
“Searching for the Cottingley Fairies” by Kim Malinowski
I. Snapshot Click. WHIRR. Shadowed still frame capturing fae.Ethereal grace magnified by child’s wonder.Muted only by adults’ misunderstanding “genuine.”Why would fae be less real if …
“Ruins” by Mary Paulson
Mary Paulson currently lives and works in Naples, FL. Her poems have appeared in Slow Trains, Mainstreet Rag, Painted Bride Quarterly, Nerve Cowboy, Arkana, Thimble …
“The Sands of Time” by Rebecca Johnson
Amber, scarlet, gilded daffodil. All sits quiet, calm,and the sun sets as I turn to you. It takes a second but then I see a …
“No Dreamin’ at the Double Tree” by Suzanne S. Rancourt
everything smells like soap except that one hallway smeared withvolatile coconut particles, reminds me of that porn theatre in somedank Indianapolis district wild with heavy …
“A Season’s Breath” by Turi Ekirapa
I can’t sleep. Deep breath in. Boredom has hit me like a speck of bird poop that I can’t shake off. I’m doing that thing …
“Hope is a Blue Jay” by Rebecca Johnson
I.As snow settles upon the landand brings with it crisp, frozen air,I’ll hear the cardinal’s jarring callas it echoes in my anxious mind. The cold …
“Pennies for Pilgrims” by Julie Allyn Johnson
Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer’s daughter from the American Midwest, began writing poetry after her retirement from IT work in 2017. She loves hiking, gravel-travel …
“Waiting” by Christine Webster-Hansen
Eyes linger, unchanged photos thickened with dust,body-locked, estranged face gazing at the mirror,clutching at the mind, recalling memories dimly-flung,cycling again through sitcom and rerun.Bras holding …
“Waking Up in California” by Jennifer Novotney
My mother is already uplong retired from work, she putters aroundher house all day, buying things and giving them awaycalling friends, taking short walkskeeping herself …
“A Future Leviathan’s Prodigious Sister” by Mina Rozario
They called me incandescent. Queens and counts, dukes and earls alike sat enthralled when I performed, swept up in a sea of notes that would …
“Rangoli Man” by Mina Rozario
Maya’s entire town had awoken one morning to find swarms of people milling outside their doors, their skins a mottled mix of colors: sunny yellows, …
“The Mosquito and the Bell Jar” by Carol Motta
Our balsa-sweet Mosquito flies low and slow into the burning sun, undetectable by radarI hear only air scratching past the belly of the holdNo bomb …
“We have Always Lived in the Castle” by Tara Campbell
We have always lived within these walls,this gleaming, shining castle on a hill,a beacon held aloft for one and allto marvel at, imagining the thrill …
“The Shape of the Laugh in Your Throat” by Edie Meade
From downstairs I hear you playfully yell “panties!” with the tantrum-bound toddler who is disemboweling my underwear drawer. By the shape of the laugh in …
“Diadem for the End of the World” by Randi Sanders
Seven billion was the end predicted by that movie where the population was fed on a questionable combination of soy, lentils, and plankton that wasn’t …
“Antidote” by Kate Copeland
A fire sunset facing her, thunder didn’t show, how much she even wished for this sky to hurt, to rive in two, boiling the river …
“Cardinal Sin” by Jennifer Fox
Julie stared at the cardinal laying in the snow outside her living room window. It was like fresh crimson on white porcelain tile which made …
“All the Water in the World” by Kate Copeland
A grey afternoon and when itcontinues to rain, a clueless patternleaves pools on our balcony, tearson the skylight.By now we knew who we are and …
“We Built a Fine Madness House” by Lorna D. Keach
Before their house was built, Jan and Stan spent hours staring at the blueprints, hunting for a 90-degree angle. Their architect told them the construction …
“Penny of Ithaca” by P.L. Watts
She’s even made the bed where another man will rape her. The swine have been slaughtered, the silver’s been laid. Everything’s ready. She scans the …
“Meditations on Water (Ode to Escambia)” by Stella Meadows
I didn’t always know I was a woman. That’s one of the myths – that every trans person knows it from Day One. I guess …
“thick crusts of midnight in the late Ordovician, a wilderness of morning elsewhere” by Kate Shannon
i.other things live easy, you knowI suppose I, too, live easy in some ways.a domination of oceans gatheringa braying of old bones, dust and then …
“Unleashed” by Catherine Zickgraf
I clutch Dad’s oak tree leg. He reads the congregation my pre-baptism testimony. Seems myheart rejects sin, especially finger-painting my bedroom during Sunday naptime. But …
“Sold Sign” by Kate Koch
The sunlight that crawls between hydrangea leaveswhile moss roses stretch and mouse through cracks in the stairs Neighbors who share their sweet ouzowith stories about …
“Recreate” by Shannon Cuthbert
Floating, ghost horse wakes in a fieldExactly like his own, just that he can’t touchThe soft weeds crawling up the fence.At first, he shivers into …
“ghazal for aguas del sur” by Kate Shannon
once, mothers waited for their dead children in damp bodies untilno more noises crept from their wind-polyp’d throats, until a dozen moons passed, a skinned …
“Bamboo” by Mary Donaldson-Evans
Privacy. Who doesn’t want privacy? Even if you’ve sold off half your property to a persistent developer intending to put up twenty “McMansions” on it, …
“Red Summer” by Chariklia Martalas
It was the days where the night would not come, for the sun held the sky hostage just by a look. It was the tyrannical …
“Pour toi, mon amour” by Tasnia Nahla
Chaos sings, we areDisintegrating whole, drunkWith the city’s disillusionmentHalf and half and nowhere reallysick sipping stars, picking dirt off soles unmet; yet to birth new …
“Glass” by Chariklia Martalas
Did they tell you Inferno was made from glass? Clear as truth turned upside down You can see through to the bottom of the world …
“Zoom In-Out-In and Cry” by Hibah Shakhez
Earth o’ mine green red brown and blue, They ask me which colour you are And laugh when I cannot answer. Could I lie you …
“Kurt” by Veronica Lupinacci
Kurt wouldn’t eat yellow rice. Hedidn’t like that exotic food. Henarrated our trip to Iowa onesummer, had a story for every exit onevery road, tooth-whistling …
“The Dinner Party” by Alexa Hailey
We arrived right on time, although we had debated that. Isn’t fashionably late, well, fashionable? In the end, though, we were on time. Which was …
“The Destiny Tree” by Hibah Shabkhez
The destiny tree, Dark gnarled and secretly wick, Claws at you and me Across eye spaces Twisting phoenix-glass specks prance Bloated toad-faces Yearning for their …
“Those Black Americans” by Evelyn Umezinwa
My finger banged on the tiny doorbell. I paced back and forth trying not to fall off the tiny step. Finally, the door slowly creaked …
A Writer and Dungeons and Dragons by Melissa Reynolds
I started playing Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) about three years ago. I didn’t know much about the game and approached it as something new to …
“1984” by DC Diamondopolous
James, as the doctors and staff at St. Mark’s Regional Hospital in San Diego insisted on calling him, applied pancake make-up over the band-aid camouflaging …
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins” by Jie Wang
We are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. …
“When My Ear Fell Off” by Stratos Moustakas & Dora Mezei
When my ear fell off I first thought of the client delegation sitting at the conference room, waiting for the meeting to begin in earnest. …
“Dopo Mezzonatte” by Marina Kazakova
Dopo mezzanotte! Dopo, dopo! The door pops open, out of the dust the ocean unfolds under the ropewalker’s high gloss black shoes. He floats among …
“Death and Mercy” by Kim Malinowski
She wasn’t a phoenix, but she knew ash. She painted herself with coals, with cinders. War paint disguising the woman of the woods. She felt …
Time in a Coronavirus World by Elena Lucia Perez
“Time is an illusion.” – Hue, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, “The Swamp” I don’t know about you, but I feel like the days this …
“Edges” By Kim Malinowski
There used to be an edge where the world ended, where ships would tumult down cataracts into nothingness. There are places still, buffers and hallows …
“Cattail Confessions” by Hannah Melin
I’ve fallen in love with all of them. How could I not? With their skin so soft I can watch it give way beneath my …
Preview: The Story That Folded Into Itself by Marina Shugrue
There’s no getting around the fact that this has been a very unusual month. Here in the States, we’re facing the first impacts of COVID-19, …
“Tree Song” by Melissa Reynolds
I have stood for over a hundred years in this place, endured the idiots who link hands and try to encompass my bulk, observed the …
Why Do We Write? by Elena Lucia Perez
Why do we write? I’ve been asking myself that lately because it’s been tough to find the motivation to do it. It’s not that I …
“So Dark, Up Above” by Emily Ruth Taylor
Sure, no one ever said that people were getting their powers from the rain. Tommy guessed it had something to do with all those big …
“Pink” by Izzy Martens
The small pink tube is pressed into the palm of my right hand. I am flicking the lid with my thumb, finding satisfaction in the …
Focusing on Your Creative Goals When You’ve Sold Out by Marina Shugrue
I’ve been a sellout since I was twenty-two, technically. That was the year I turned a seasonal copywriting job in the fashion industry into a …
“Barbed Wires” by Ria Banerjee
Did you, my beloved, notice the barbed wiresthat run along the length of the city,to separate you from me?Such walls of divisiveness are man-made:penetrating your …
“The Neighborhood is Burning” by Kaileen Campbell
The house across from mehas caught aflameand taken it against water The firemen are comingtheir trucks yelling attheir speed. They are dressedin their shieldsand are …
“The Night the Billado Block Burned Down” by Elizabeth Gauffreau
Then the Billado Block burned down, and I had nowhere to live. “Well, shit,” I said to the guy standing next to me watching it …
“It was Slow” by Kaileen Campbell
I sat and held the world’s coldest hand.One whose skin had been taken by ice. The palm of a dried …
“Reclamation” by Mallika Bhaumik
Someday we might meet,when time has melted in us,our lives look like dried river beds Would you then recognise my face? My face might appear …
“some other nights” by Mallika Bhaumik
Nights are essays in loneliness words scrawled in the darknone to be retrieved, I stretch on the bed; disheveled like my hair,twinning with the night.My …