“Here it is: Women are the gravity stopping humanity from drifting off aimlessly into the void. We mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, grandmothers — women — are the backbone of the world.”
mothers and daughters
Out There I Have to Smile
Heather Lanier explores the pressure to perform happiness.
What Didn’t Kill Her
Bernice L. McFadden ruminates on all the things her mother has endured only to find herself spending her golden years in the midst of a deadly plague and state-sanctioned racism.
Sharing Food to Feed A Family’s Soul
Food feeds the body, but cooking for other people feeds human connections.
At Mrs. Balbir’s
Jillian Dunham traveled thousands of miles from home to get away from her grief. It found her anyway, in a stranger’s Bangkok apartment.
Searching Sephora for an Antidote to Aging — and Grief
Five years after her mother’s death, while still grieving and suddenly middle-aged, Abby Mims turns to beauty products to cure what ails her.
The Christmas Tape
Wendy McClure recounts how an old audio tape of holiday music becomes a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
Cut From the Same Cloth
Artist Myfanwy Tristram was irritated by her teenage daughter’s extreme fashions — until she took an illustrated journey into their origins.
In the Country of Women
Amid badass women and endless stories, a young California writer comes of age in the orange groves as the Golden State comes into its own.
Does the Woman in the Painting Have a Secret?
In the wake of her mother’s passing, Dylan Landis wrestles with unanswered questions about love and art, and imagines different possibilities of what could have been.