by Michele Beller

A bell of familiarity clanged in my head when I read that Stern’s father defended himself, reminding her how much he “tried to help” her during her “troubled childhood.” The exasperated voice of my mother came back to haunt—“You have a fear of success,” she would say to me when I was at my lowest. Continue reading →

by Judy Chicurel

It’s funny, but looking back, what restored my passion for my work was as simple as a game of improvised hide-and-seek. Continue reading →

by Sonya Chung

Emotion wells up: I feel sorrow, and gratitude, and pity. I don’t know what I am sorrowful about, for what I am grateful, or for whom I feel pity. But I feel these things, teeming and indistinguishable. Continue reading →

by Tricia Stearns

I took a class on the art of research. We were required to choose a subject worthy of a future thesis topic. . . . [m]y topic included poverty among single women, organic produce, local farmers, and ways to eat healthy on a severe budget. Continue reading →

by Kim Church

When the women of Gee’s Bend sit down to piece a quilt, they don’t wait for a pattern to manifest itself. . . . They have to work quickly because their lives are full of other work—in the fields, in their homes, among their families. Continue reading →

by Meganne Fabrega

I had a hard time respecting my creative work so, of course, my family didn’t either. . . . Because really, when I had a family to take care of, a job to go to, a dog that needed to be walked, who was I to even think of putting my work first? Continue reading →

by Amy Weldon

At first, shucking off my professor identity felt easy. But then preening self-awareness crept in. . . . Next stop—I congratulated myself—would be mastery! . . . Yet by the end of the second day I was stuck. Continue reading →