My mom and I stood alongside the fence line and watched my billy goat chase his mother around and around the pen, trying to mount her. “See that Cleo?” Mom tried to educate me. “That’s what men are like. All they want is sex.” I listened, but I would have to learn for myself. […]
The narrator of “Ten Dollars” goes out for a night of fun and dancing, but instead finds herself in a nightmare situation. Because she tries to defend her feminist principles at a club, she finds herself protecting her friend from physical danger—a danger that is, ironically, gendered in nature. […]
May Bennet approaches a sadly familiar story (the aftermath of assault) nontraditionally to discuss how past traumas link and entangle, further complicating one’s life long after the events have transpired. This essay emphasizes how a history of trauma affects new relationships and how one might regain autonomy in the aftermath of abuse. […]
A woman catches herself minimizing a dangerous situation in her past by measuring it against what happened to her friend. Giving herself permission to remember unlocks once-forgotten details and allows her to honor her friend’s bravery—and her own. […]
“Home and the Breaking Point” explores the realities of small-town rape culture as the author witnesses three peers discuss the assault of another, in a story about the price of a place in the conversation. […]
“Obituary“ is the story of a woman learning a pastor she once admired died several months ago. As she reads various eulogies in parish newsletters, her inner eye presents her with flashbacks to times when she was close to him, revealing the true nature of their relationship. […]
In this new seasonal series, we highlight some badasses.
_Lido Pimienta
_Ana Tijoux
_Shadia Mansour
_Gogol Bordello
_LP
_Melissa Lozada-Oliva
_Jessie Reyez
_The Hamilton Mixtape: K’naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC (Riz Ahmed), and Residente […]
Vestiges of Courage is a collection of personal essays that explores inequities and injustice. Raised between two cultures and two languages, Mireya S. Vela discusses how the systems in her family and in society worked to create an abusive environment that felt crushing, confusing, and hopeless. In her book, Ms. Vela delineates her experience of living through sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. This book is much more than a collection of experiences, though. Ms. Vela wants to know how and why abuse thrived in her family. She digs deep to understand why these things happened and how she survived. […]
We share four essays included in Mireya S. Vela’s forthcoming book, Vestiges of Courage, Collected Essays—a collection of personal essays that explores inequities and injustice. Ms. Vela discusses how the systems in her family and in society worked to create an abusive environment that felt crushing, confusing, and hopeless. In her book, Ms. Vela delineates her experience of living through sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. Ms. Vela wants to know how and why abuse thrived in her family. […]
What first drew me to Mireya S. Vela was what initially attracted me to the work of Frida Kahlo. Vela’s art and creative nonfiction consider an important question: What is Woman? Vela outwardly displays her pain […]
We eleven-year-old girls sat through the film in the cafeteria and watched a movie about pads and how you could menstruate at night lying down. We all worried about the blood that might go straight […]
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