THE KEEPING ROOM
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 via PayPal. Submit via Submittable.
***Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if accepted elsewhere.
***All material must be original and unpublished.
On the Playground, I Think About How a Mother Is Like a Moth
By Emily Patterson
Emily Patterson is a curriculum...
FICTION
Delphiniums in Silence by Sara Masciola
They ran out of milk three days ago. Looking into the refrigerator for an alternative, Nora saw a white and green carton of orange juice sitting nearly alone, flanked only by withering grapes and a half-used can of tomato paste. That could work. Cheerios are...
Borrowed by Berkley Carnine
It wasn’t lying if you planned to tell the truth eventually, that’s what Annie Rae had told herself when she’d made the appointment two weeks ago. She’d needed to do this thing in her own way and when she wasn’t fucked up about it anymore, or ashamed of feeling...
Wildflowers by Kate Snow
My body holds the history of so many Mississippi summers that a bead of sweat rolls down my back in anticipation. I leave the relative cool of the house and step out into a predatory heat that envelopes the landscape in fever. I breathe in heavy air and let the screen...
If I Die Before I See You by Domnica Radulescu
We saw each other again during a summer storm in the Shenandoah Valley, in the Walmart parking lot. He was returning from a trip to Russia, and I had just settled amidst those blue foggy mountains, pregnant with his child. I had dragged the messiness of my life all...
Amanda Maynard, Author of The Quixote by Carla Miriam Levy
Amanda cradles the book in both hands; she can hardly believe it’s here. She has lurked in McIntyre’s second-hand bookstore for weeks, hoping its musty shelves would offer up this prize, but never really expecting it—because who would want to get rid of a Dorothy...
CREATIVE NONFICTION
DOGGED by Marty Kingsbury
In my 71 years of life, I’ve known lots of pain: scrapes and stitches and broken bones. Pinched sciatica. Bone spurs. Headaches that drum my skull. But this one was different. This one was hard to figure out. It started on a neighborhood walk, when the February sun...
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. My dad had let us make the six-hour journey north because he didn’t know we wouldn’t be returning. We...
Lipstick by Norma Schafer
The tube is gold and metallic blue, scratched, tarnished, and well-worn. The removeable gold top has ridges with the raised edges now silvery, signs of its aging. I can still faintly read Estee Lauder stamped on the mid-section band between the two tones. There is a...
Dinner for Two Lovely People by Tracy Harris
You can tell when a binge is about to happen. Just as the sky darkens and the air grows thick with moisture before a thunderstorm, a binge starts with warning signs. Unlike a thunderstorm, however, a binge does not signal its approach with rumbling, because a binge...
Glimpses by Anne E. Beall
A few months ago, I looked up and realized you were walking along the sidewalk in front of me. You walked as if you weren't sure of yourself—not convinced you had a solid place on this earth. Your backpack had telltale signs of adolescence—small stuffed animals on key...
POETRY
Infinity Pond
by Carol Sadtler
Infinity Pond lap upon lap, around and backin sparkling aqua circlesour rhythmic kicks aeratewater into froth—arms dipin synchrony—propeljoy we are beautiful in our blue and greenswimsuits—my younger sister and I—like newly-hatched sunfish—knowthe wriggle and glide in...
Wizening by Jennifer Weiss
When my gnarled toes graze a desolate bedand I stow away your time-frayed pillowcase,may I remember: The trace of your fingers that unraveled me.The rubescent communion of our lips.The bliss when I nuzzled the cleft of your neck.How our souls connected like puzzle...
Tomato Season
By Emily Patterson
Emily Patterson is a curriculum designer, poet, and mother. She holds a B.A. in English from Ohio...
The Water Cycle
By Luciana Francis
Luciana Francis is a Brazilian-born, UK-based writer of poetry and fiction. She holds a BA (Hons) degree in Anthropology and Media from Goldsmiths, University of...
On the Playground, I Think About How a Mother Is Like a Moth
By Emily Patterson
Emily Patterson is a curriculum designer, poet, and mother. She holds a B.A. in English from Ohio...