Blog Voices from Our Community

Read stories, updates, and reflections from artists, staff, and survivors. Here, we share the heart of Awakenings — one post at a time.

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Solar Power

Rebecca Nestor pulls us gently through dreams and reality, childhood and adulthood. As she comes to terms with a momentous move away from where she

  • Fiction
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Afterwards, I.

In an ongoing emotional waterfall, Meggie Royer responds to sexual violence with a stream of consciousness. She drops us into the days after surviving intimate

  • Essay
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Why I Didn’t Report

Harty asks the same question again and again, with a new answer each time. Why I didn’t report? “There are too many reasons.” Through writing

  • Essay
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Other Me’s Request

Trauma has left us between times and worlds. In a response to our May prompt, “Other Me’s Request” experiments with time as we follow “Me”

  • Memoir
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No Seconds

A chance encounter leads to a reckoning with the past in “No Seconds” by RW Anton. When someone from years ago happens upon the main

  • Fiction
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West Wants Us to Join the Witch Hunt

As a wonderful Awakenings intern and an astute writer and journalist, Emma Dempsey now contributes a review of Lindy West’s newest essay collection to The

  • Review
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What’s Happening?

A lack of consent is a betrayal of trust–especially from supposed friends–and it can alter not only one’s relationship with those people, but one’s whole

  • Fiction
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Saturday Stress

In a piece for the current moment, Dominic Bucca reflects on his self-isolation experience and extends his thoughts and attention to those who may be

  • Memoir
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Kintsugi; precious scars

What does it mean to feel broken, and how is it possible to rebuild? After sexual violence made her family feel broken, Dreen Lucky examines

  • Memoir
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Breaking; Not Yet Broken

There is a difference between breaking and brokenness, between a splinter of pain and falling to pieces. Susanna Penfield explores the nuances of hurt in

  • Memoir
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Letter from Executive Director Laura Kinter

We wanted to give our community a different kind of update. Not another announcement of closure and cancellation. Not another “stay healthy!” If you’re like

  • Letter
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Prompting

It’s normal to feel isolated right now, or scared, or worried, or unsure of what’s going to happen next, or whatever it is that you’re

  • Other
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Gashouse Eggs

In a response to our February prompt, a family breakfast tradition explores the tension within silence and an untold truth. Marema explores the contrast between

  • Fiction
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Intentions

Reverend Dr. Barbara Edemea returns to The Nightingale with a series of positive intentions celebrating belief in one another, oneself, and our community of survivors.

  • Essay, Memoir
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New Recipe: Healthy Relationship

In this response to our February prompt, a recipe for healing takes us through the process of leaving an abusive relationship and entering a healthy

  • Memoir

Create, connect, & heal

Find your place in our circle of creators, where every artistic choice is valid and every emotion is welcome. Healing isn’t linear, nor a path you have to walk alone.

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