Painting by Miriam Zora Engel (author’s daughter)“Do you know what dust is?” my twelve-year-old daughter asks, looking...
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
A Scar That Burns by April McCloud
The thing I remember most about dying, is how much it burns.
Educating Grandma by Marilyn Morgan
A product of the fifties, I grew up with Donna Reed, Pat Boone, and the most daring heartthrob of all, Elvis Presley. So when my fifteen-year-old granddaughter, Lia, said to me, “Grandma, I’m not a girl,” I felt the wind ravel right out of my lungs.
Drawing Blood by Sherry Stratton
Blood draws have been hard on me my whole life. The medical techs tell me my veins are small. Sometimes they resort to a pediatric needle…
Fight Like a Girl by Justine Payton
CW: sexual violence
The man who settled himself between my legs was twice my size. I immediately felt suffocated beneath the pressure of his weight …
The Shattered Six-Year-Old Speaks and I Ask her to Return by Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer
The shattered six-year-old
There Are Giants in the Sky by Natalie Chih-lu Hung
One chilly February evening, my 4-year-old and I sit on his bed, our eyes locked in a playful stand-off. He has just requested Goldilocks and the Three Bears as his bedtime story for the 21st time in a row …
Her Longing & His Loneliness by L Grace G
Our marriage counselor asked, “So, what happened that night?”
DOGGED by Marty Kingsbury
In my 71 years of life, I’ve known lots of pain: scrapes and stitches and broken bones. Pinched sciatica…
Jesus Is Delicious by Monica J. Casper
I was small when my mom and my sister, and I left a drafty old house in coal country for Chicago. We had tickets to Bozo’s Circus, which we’d only ever seen on TV…
Lipstick by Norma Schafer
The tube is gold and metallic blue, scratched, tarnished, and well-worn. The removable gold top has ridges with the raised edges now silvery, signs of its aging.