top of page
BLOG
GRANDE DAME LITERARY
WOMEN WRITERS VIBRANT VOICES
submissions are open
RECENT POSTS
Half-Known
They met on the 5th of July, and by autumn, had fallen in a strange rhythm: sharing a bed and kissing at night, all under the label of friendship. He’s going out with another girl now, and they’ve started a strained, limited friendship since, with minimal physical contact. He misses their emotional closeness and connection and she misses his arms around her at night. It’s her birthday and they’re on a ski trip with some mutual friends. “Hello,” he says, stepping into the
E.Q. Lean
4 days ago
465
In the winter of 1955, I was a young girl from Queens who yearned to become a famous writer. My childhood had been unremarkable. I had loving parents, a few honest friends, and a modest, pleasant apartment overlooking a busy street. I went to a good school and passed the time writing poems and stories filled with different characters who had more interesting lives. Thinking back, I should have relished in the repetition and routines—the stability of my life. Though dull and g
Faye Klutke
4 days ago
How Dolly Saved Me
I am weeping nearly as loudly as I am singing Dolly Parton’s “Just Because I’m a Woman,” as I drive the Turner Turnpike from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. Hurtling down the turnpike through uncontrollable tears may sound risky, but I know people who read the newspaper while making this trek. Or trim their nails, apply mascara, work on their laptop or even change their shoes, for Chrissake. The flat, straight road which rides atop treeless plains does not speak to my soul’s geograph
Rebecca Hinshaw
4 days ago
Judgement Day
“Why would someone want to dig around in my memories?” I said. “Long ago and some best left forgotten.” “But you haven’t forgotten, have you Mrs. Mac? Yours goes back to, what age did you say?” Haley laughed and made the “snuk, snuk” noise I’d told her about, when my dad took me out of church and spanked me for being a hellion and me, embarrassed at not being able to control my snorty sniffles when we came back in. “Dad said later I would have been three. Apparently, it cur
Lois Hibbert
6 days ago
Home
“You live in an apartment? I think it must be cute,” offered my friend naively when I reluctantly admitted I lived in the apartment complex everyone called Fat City. I coveted her home, her two-parent household, her sunken bedroom, her thriving Barbie collection. Much like Molly Ringwald’s character in Pretty in Pink (“I don’t want you to take me home, okay?!”), I was petrified to ever let anyone in my hometown see where we lived, whether it was the green shag apartment in
Nicole Irizawa
Mar 4
Raven in an Apple Tree
When I was a child, my father taught me a trick about how to make yourself wake up at a certain time if you didn’t have an alarm clock handy or even how to remember something you had to do the next morning when you went to bed. He said that what you should do was to picture a blank blackboard, like the kind I knew from school, and then picture yourself picking up a piece of chalk and writing on the blackboard exactly what you wanted to remember the next day. “Try it and see,”
Eleanor Lerman
Feb 25
Marvelous Peggy
My dreamscape shifts, images fading in and out of consciousness. The flickering movie speeds up, then slows, finally resolving into something recognizable: My kitchen. The room is filled with a flat light that casts few shadows, the middle world. A dark-haired woman sits at my cherry wood dining table, examining bone china teacups neatly arranged on a silver tray as if I'd been expecting company. "Your mother loved these," the woman says, holding a translucent white cup wit
Jesse Devyn Crowe
Feb 25
The In Between
There is a certain time of day I call the in-between. The sun is still there, and yet it has already begun to descend. I love this hour because nothing feels final. Not day. Not evening. The light shifts. The day exhales. For a moment, I am not reaching for what comes next. It feels like crossing time zones midair, where two realities exist at once. I have lived here before. Between diagnosis and acceptance. Between goodbye and silence. Between the woman I was
Carol Ornstein
Feb 25
The Inheritance
Delisia considered herself to be the good daughter. Blond and slight, she had majored in economics before going on to get a master’s degree in architecture, her ambition driving her to apply for scholarships and marry her way into a higher income bracket. Even an early divorce had not lessened her stature in the family hierarchy as her parents reacted kindly by saying that they hadn’t really liked the husband all that much. Aline, three years younger, was certainly no black s
Sylvia Sensiper
Feb 23
The Autumn Puzzle
Every autumn, a puzzle takes over our house—and, somehow, our lives. What starts as a small box of scattered cardboard quickly grows into a season-long obsession. It’s part hobby, part decoration, part social experiment, and part silent competition between family members who all claim to ‘just be helping.’ We have a folding table that migrates from room to room depending on the season, chasing the best light like a spoiled cat with commitment issues. Sometimes it’s in the liv
Helaine Fiedler
Feb 23
Between Two Mirrors
The Broken Reflection The last time I saw my sister, Alice, she was being wheeled away from me at a Southern California airport. It was her 71st birthday. The attendant pushed her slowly toward the entrance, and I watched from the car as she became a tiny, frail woman clutching a beat-up canvas bag on her lap. Fear was a cold knot in my stomach, a familiar feeling that pulled me back in time to an entirely different airport almost 40 years ago. That day, my mother, angry for
Laura Dinoia
Feb 23
The Bike is Fine
The first time I touched a dead person, I was ten years old at my grandfather’s funeral. I stared at his profile because I was not tall enough to look down at his face. I noticed that the end of his nose turned slightly downward. My Aunt Thelma set a chair next to the casket. She helped me kneel on the seat of the chair for a better view. I looked. It was Grampa for sure. As I turned to descend from the chair, Aunt Thelma said, “Carol, would you like to kiss Gramp
Marcia Calhoun Forecki
Feb 23
My Ghost Remains
Your words chosen oh so carefully. Beautifully. “I want to know you. Tell me anything and everything.” Recklessly. “Let’s move away from here. We can start over, somewhere warmer.” You led me down the most romantic path saying, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” I smiled all the way thinking there would be flowers, diamonds, and a stroller at the end. But it only led to slaughter. Two cuts: first shallow— “I don’t feel the same,” then deep— “No, we ca
Madison Williams
Feb 23
The New Gardener
Early morning, summer sun fills the study with peaceful yellow light. Already at my desk, reading emails, inhaling strong coffee, pondering a suitable response to the solicitor, hopefully one of the last I will ever need to write. Unravelling a life, my life; the journey through a tunnel of a thousand emotional miles is nearly complete. Finally I am beginning to see light, have a sense of a future, wonder what might be next. As if on cue my laptop emits a soft PING, it’s his
Stephanie Staton
Feb 23
The Shore Is My Home
Where is one to go when love has departed? When breath wavers, my throat tightens, and only despair fills my lungs? My wounds burn with saltwater grief— it always comes in waves. Unlike the tide, it doesn’t recede quickly. I grit my teeth in the sting. I will remain by the water. Pacing the dock by day, sitting atop the lighthouse by night. The shore is now my home. Here I may be found, while I wait for love’s return. His voyage long, his journey hard fought. His soul w
Madison Williams
Feb 23
Sweet Memories
It’s a cake made mostly of air, sluiced in scents of sugar, white chocolate and lemon. Cooled, melted chocolate spun first into the batter, then into cream for the frosting. Doing her part to hold the fragile tower in line is homemade curd of Meyer lemons. Baked for a friend’s birthday 40-some years ago, I’ve tried twice to recreate the cunning confection. I woke this morning thinking that I should try to make this cake again. Then I remember how my neck and back turn to fir
Lynne Schilling
Feb 23
-
Has someone else read your work?
Yes. Progress to #2. No, have someone else take a look.
We all think we've written something marvelous. -
Did the person give you constructive feedback or was it a friend being nice?
Yes, constructive. Progress to #3. No, it was someone being polite.
Friends are great, but a fellow experienced writer or editor will tell you what is missing. -
Are you willing to make changes and deletions?
Yes. Progress to #4. No, ask yourself why not.
Read through the suggestions and comments, take a break, and then decide what changes you can make that will enhance the reader's experience. -
Did you check for typos and adhere to the journal's formatting?
-
Yes, you are ready to submit. No, means it needs a last look.
Formatting mistakes and too many typos can disqualify your work.
Ready
to
submit?
bottom of page