Madeleine Johnson is an actress, filmmaker and writer from Portland, Oregon. She attributes her appreciation for many of the best things in life—black coffee, dinner parties, roadtrips, rock music, laughing til you cry, trashy tv, pop art—to her late, great mother. Madeleine’s blog, Dear Mama, is a collection of letters written to her mother since […]
Read more "Dear Mama PART 1"There’s really only one way to describe what happened when my six-month contract with the American University of Paris ended and my stint on the dole began. A miracle. A sparkly, astonishing miracle that was more shocking to me than the concept of eating a horse. Because no matter what anybody tells you, French people eat […]
Read more "Un-job: French Unemployment Therapy"This is Part 1 of a two-part series. See Part 2 here. Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands. Heard of it? If so, please feel free to drop me a line, because I think I may know you! Otherwise, you’ll probably be like most of my readers who stick to the more visually engaging spectrum of […]
Read more "Trendsetting in a Text World – Part 1: Focusing on Feminism"Karina Lutz is a workshop leader, poet, teacher, and lifelong activist. She helped secure passage of sustainable energy legislation, thwart a proposed megaport, and restore wetlands in Rhode Island. In 2013, she received honorable mention from Homebound Publications Poetry Prize for her manuscript, Preliminary Visions. Half Smile Decades after your banishment I feel your expression […]
Read more "Half Smile"You gave us joy for a little over a month. A tentative joy for me. From the beginning I felt something was wrong. I was reluctant to tell anyone about you. Then there was my sickness. Exponentially worse than with your brother. I thought I might be having twins. Or dying. Around a week or […]
Read more "A Different Kind of Birth Story"Sometimes we say, “This tragedy, it happened far away. I don’t know what to do. I’m concerned but I’m just dangling in space.” A poem can lead you through that, and it is made of action because you’re giving your whole life to it in that moment. –Juan Felipe Herrera Tell them you are not […]
Read more "THE DAY AFTER or FIGURING OUT HOW TO TALK TO MY STUDENTS ABOUT THE UCC SHOOTING"How in the world are these two categories related? Well, it’s coincidental mostly. It happens that in the last two months I got pregnant and had a miscarriage, and have experienced the struggles of being a vegan in a meat-oriented world through my best friend. She decided to become vegan a few months ago, after […]
Read more "At the Intersection of Veganism and Miscarriage"
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