margaret dunn

Gifts | Margaret Dunn

I bought my mother a vibrator. It’s not what you think. I was 25, so fresh out of college I still had that new B.F.A smell clinging to my clothes. I had recently been dumped by the love-of-my-life-du-jour, a hippie who left me for a woman already four months pregnant with some other redneck’s kid. Classy. I had moved to Seattle to intern with the Seattle Repertory Theatre and found a whole new world of women — intellectual women, activist […]

female bodies

Bodies | Brooke Allen

I wrote this piece after the election, but I don’t want to talk about politics.  We’ve had enough of that this week. Just this morning I was told by a man on Facebook that I was “extremely arrogant” for expressing my political views. So I’m not even going to mention the election, or even tell you who I voted for. It will have to remain a yuuuuge mystery. I promise this piece will be absolutely unbiased toward any candidate or […]

A Christmas Miracle | Julie Cowden-Starbird

This is a story about Christmas. This is a story about my grandmother. This is a story about her unfailing trust and love. But it’s mostly a story about what a badass she is. December of 1996, my sophomore year of college. It was the last day of finals before Winter Break. I was excited to go home and see my family and take a well-deserved rest from the rigors of my class load. But I was more excited to […]

Origin Story | Ruth McCormack

Some superheroes are ordinary citizens, transformed by chance into defenders of peace and justice. You know, your Spider-men, your Incredible Hulks. Some are born to a life of heroism, like Superman or Harry Potter. Some undergo a terrible trauma and vow to seek revenge, like Batman or the Punisher. As a child, this sort of career didn’t seem that far out of reach. Not that I couldn’t distinguish fantasy from reality, but I had an acute sense of fairness, strong […]