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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Rest

An editorial with Megan Otto Rest We’d like to share with our Awakenings community that The Nightingale is taking a hiatus. We’re pausing this project,

  • Prose
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The Wife of a Bottom Feeder

In this piece by Laura Bristow, we view a fishing trip as an allegory for an experience with sexual violence. With deft language, clever metaphor,

  • All Authors, Prose
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Thank you, Chicago

Katherine Page revisits The Nightingale with a lovely portrait of a healing through traveling. She writes of finding strength as a survivor when she returns

  • Memoir, Prose
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Bodily Authority

One trauma folds into another as Meredith Lindgreen explores loss after a miscarriage and an experience with sexual violence. She meditates on a lack of

  • Memoir, Prose
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Miss Ott and the Breaking Girl

C. Christine Fair answers our October prompt by expanding upon her poem “When Uncle Art Babysat for Mom”, published in our most recent issue of

  • Prose
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Rewrite

In response to our October prompt, Katherine Page returns to a piece of writing that is distinctly connected to her past experience with sexual violence-a

  • Journal Entry, Memoir, Other, Prose
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The Girl in the Mirror

Danielle Hark responds to our September prompt with a piece about reclaming vital pieces of herself – her body, her skin, and her reflection. She

  • Prose
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Shadows of Darkness

“Shadows of Darkness” highlights the un-realities of experiencing an assault, especially when the violence comes from a close relation. With eyes closed, Charity Marie’s escape

  • All Authors, Prose
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Reclaiming the Eastland

The theme of reclaiming is examined with a wider lens in this piece by Jean Cozier, the founder of Awakenings. She writes about the Eastland

  • Prose
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Truth Found Me in the Trauma

Nothing can change the truth, and this is a beautiful source of solace for Mary-Elizabeth Meagher. Other survivors’ stories about sexual violence helped Meagher come

  • Memoir, Prose
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Treatment or Trauma? I Wasn’t Sure. But Now I Am.

“Harrassment and assault can happen anywhere.” This reminder in Mary-Elizabeth Meagher’s piece is accompanied by powerful self-reflection. Healing isn’t easy, and Meagher takes us through

  • Memoir, Prose
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Let Me Tell You About Hazel

“Let Me Tell You About Hazel” holds a meta-narrative, a story inside a story — we meet J. Askew and we also meet Hazel, their

  • All Authors, Prose
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Reclamation

Rev. Dr. Barbara Edema reframes the concept of gaining back what was “lost” in trauma in a way that allows for new gentleness and self-compassion.

  • Prose
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A Drowning at Dog River

Kim Conrey examines sexual violence in the context of the social systems we’re raised in that so often perpetuate it. Conrey bravely shares her story

  • Prose

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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