When I was 16, I observed the red discoloring of my underpants. My face flushed with embarrassment, though I was alone with my period. I felt embarrassed about what womanhood might mean for my body.
Creative Nonfiction
The Keeping Room is an online magazine for all women writers, poets, and artists.
We are looking to publish your short stories, essays, free writing, poetry, and photo essays that touch on topics related to Women’s Wisdom, Lessons Learned, Self-care, Bodies, Relationships, and Community.
Writers selected for publication will be paid $25
Small Rituals by Michelle Fitzgerald
I empty your pockets to find a carefully curated collection of trinkets and talismans from your day.
Tiny quartz pebbles.
Flower petals.
A pint-sized lime, unripe from our tree.
Too Much Pepper, and a Baby by Lora Berg
How do people decide on a number of children to have?
Have: 1. possess, own, hold.
2. experience, undergo.
Hurts So Good by Tanya Bowers
I have a crush on my massage therapist. It’s not that I am particularly attracted to her. She’s good-looking, but she isn’t my type.
Invisible by Cynthia Gilmore
Old women are invisible. But in a way, it’s our superpower. Not chosen but imposed upon by a culture enamored of youth. A wrinkle-free obsession that suffers our presence with indifference.
Star Days by Loie Rawding
The Folgers instant coffee reminds me of my mother’s parents, now dead. The hard chunks of processed bean disintegrate with unsettling speed …
In the Arms of Gravity by Veronica Wasson
The girls were tall with impossibly long limbs.
Their lines were abstract grace, curves that moved through time, space, and rhythm.
Red Planet, With Exit Wounds by Laura Ingram
Every year throughout its tenure on Mars, the Curiosity Rover sang itself “Happy Birthday” on August fifth. I told you about it once, in the car, on the way home from the hospital …
Gold Sneakers: What a Saudi Woman Taught Me About Agency by Helen Collins Sitler
Photo by Foad Roshan via UnsplashGold sneakers peeked out from under Safiya’s plain abaya. We both grinned when she...
What She Remembers by Kandi Maxwell
She’s backpacked hundreds of miles throughout Northern California’s backcountry—The John Muir Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Yosemite, Sequoia, King’s Canyon, the Trinity Alps, Mount Whitney, and Mount Shasta to name a few.
Vacated Lawn Chairs by Miriam Bat-Ami
Since my husband’s death in March of 2020, I’ve gotten into the habit of counting chairs on front porches and lawns, in backyards and around firepits, vacated seats suggesting a grouping of two or more…