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***All material must be original and unpublished.
BIRTHDAY TWIN
By Lindsay Rutherford
My birthday twin died today. I knew almost nothing about him, except that he and I were born on the exact same date. We were the same age until around 11am this morning when I began to grow steadily...
FICTION
Fat Girl In Crowded Room by Erica W. Jamieson
I should stand, right? And just start talking? Okay, then. I’m Emily. I should tell you it’s not my first time in group. I mean I’ve been before, a long time ago, in a group, like this. And, well, now I’m back. What else? Oh, just tell you about last weekend? That’s...
Jailbait by Rachel Christina McConnell
Virginia is for lovers, his license plate said, but I sure as hell wasn’t losing my virginity in the backseat of his car. My first time was in a Motel 6. Getting a room was my idea. I thought it was sexy. Romantic, even. He was twenty-four and I was fifteen. Forbidden...
Blues
By Sara Gilbert
I thought I’d be happier to step onto American soil. It was home, after all. I thought it would be comforting or reassuring or something. I thought it would feel like home. But looking at the giant ass American flag across from the escalator came with an emotion I...
American Summer
By Shinelle L. Espaillat
Love Allen yearned and survived, carrying the American zeitgeist in her skin. It began just after the last day of school. Because she loved her two children beyond reason or sensibility, she let them have the first week free and clear—no chores, no bedtimes, no...
Tear
By Emily Battistini
It just wasn’t the right time. Maybe that’s what people always say. Or maybe they’ve learned not to say that. Because it does sound awful, doesn’t it? It just wasn’t the right time—when there’s a vulnerable new life budding inside you. I knew I couldn’t keep it. I was...
CREATIVE NONFICTION
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...
An Echo in the Forest by Jennifer Dodge
It was a spur-of-the-moment camping trip. Normally, you plan your outdoor adventures well in advance. You want to gaze up at the stars and not hear the whoosh of a toilet flush nearby. Of course, there are spots where there are no toilets, but this requires a shovel,...
POETRY
Honeysuckle
By Tifara Brown
Black bodies are honeysuckle For dry white lips Sweet tender stalks Crushed between towers of broken ivory You crush my spine To taste the nectar inside Tear into my flowers, The Eden, nestled between my thighs Rip open my leaves And drink the milk under my tongue...
Fair Words for My Daughter
By Tara Iacobucci
Daughter, take this. The most powerful word on Earth is no. Hold it in between your teeth like a kernel. Another word: Sorry. Hold that one under your tongue, let it dissolve like cotton candy. Here, say I am worthy. Here, say empowered. When your brothers complain...
Strange Attractors: The Fractal Geometry of the Perfect Kiss
By Devin Guthrie
If we took the tangents of each crease that lies along the curves of your lips we could make matrices, incandescent constellations extended in 4 dimensions through the continuum, of all the things you’ve ever said to me— The 1st π Day I baked blueberry & you...
At Best Farm in Monocacy, Maryland
By Kelsi Folsom
I. Beautiful day for war, fields of yellowing leaves speckled with black spots buffering centuries of secrets stuck in the soil whispering to any root that’ll listen to its’ stories. Put down your weapons, pick up your ploughs. II. The earth has never faltered under...
“Hymn”, “Feathers”, “Lineage”
by Rikki Santer
Hymn Thirsty for aPleistoncene morning, I’m a graying creaturetrotting in & out of shadows. I rest deep in the dark belly of my backyard ravine. ...