top of page
Women Writers Vibrant Voices
BLOG
GRANDE DAME LITERARY
Dear Authors & Readers, We have discovered the problem with the formatting. Our hosting platform narrowed some of the margins, thus causing the alignment of text to be off. At this time, we have removed the sidebar which has allowed the spacing to revert to how we have entered it on the back end. Just to err on the side of caution, we will go through the entire blog. We have almost 300 blog posts, bear with us, it's going to take a little bit of time and patience. If you have been published or know someone else who has, please check the post and it will help us to expedite the process. Thank you for your understanding.
Grande Dame & Editors of GDLJ
WOMEN WRITERS. VIBRANT VOICES.
MEMOIR SHORT STORIES POEMS ESSAYS LONG FICTION
are you interested in breathing new life into a previously published story, poem, or memoir?
now you can
celebrate the writing of women authors
STAY IN THE LOOP
Mom A La Mode
I remember trips with my mom to Baskin-Robbins as a kid. She would take my sisters and me after ballet class on sunny afternoons. I remember peering over the glass counters, looking down at the tubs of creamy frozen goodness. I can't recall the names of the flavors, but the colors remain vivid thirty years later: pink, light blue, mint green, and neon orange, a work of art for my eyes designed in the colors of Easter, arranged like a box of pastel-colored chalk, illuminated b
Vanessa Garza
4 days ago
A Wintry Wind Whispers
A wintry wind whispers among bare branches In upland fields, a gale howls through frozen hawthorn A mad east wind storms and screams in frenzied fury over abandoned graves and broken crosses Sleet sweeps across Alpine pastures In the fold the sheep bleat pitifully Icy rain incessantly rattles a broken window Snow falls lightly on a transformed landscape Moonlight is filtered through a sea mist throwing dappled light on dark waters Waves dribble up cold, wet sand Sea ice roars
Sarah Das Gupta
Dec 28, 2025
The Damsel and the Distress
Guinevere knew exactly what her breaking point had been in her wretched marriage to Charlie, which had seemed like salvation then only to end up like a curse. Girls who come from bad family situations are often scooped up by men who seek them out for their vulnerability, their lack of protection — not to save but to exploit them. She knew for a fact she had never loved Charles. But she wondered if Charles had loved her — not her, but who he had thought she was. Because she
Blair Boleyn
Dec 27, 2025
Softly Reassuring
In the barn the cattle’s breath floats, a warm mist touched by the smell of dung and straw. In the fold, the sheep huddle, their rhythmic bleating, softly reassuring. In the farm kitchen a red glow throws shadowy flames flickering across the walls. Wet boots dry out on the hearth. The sound of snow, softly reassuring. From the warm parlour the notes of a piano sound out over the white wilderness; old, familiar tunes, softly reassuring. BIO Sarah Das Gupta is a poet from Cambr
Sarah Das Gupta
Dec 27, 2025
Ghosted
Spectra’s hands shake as she opens the mysterious envelope. She nearly ruined it with the dirt from her shoes. It is on the floor as she enters the Victorian flat she shares with her aunt in Notting Hill. Someone must have hand delivered this? She slips the opal tipped silver letter opener, a gift from her alma mater, the British Academy of Paranormal Investigation, like a surgical instrument under the seal to preserve the wax and the image stamped on it. She holds the seal
Carolyn Olson
Dec 25, 2025
The Dating Game
When I was a young girl, I was convinced that one day, I would fall in love. There was no question in the matter. It was a fact. A truth of life evident from every movie and TV show I entertained myself with. I started off with Disney princess movies. My favorite was Sleeping Beauty for a while, and then it was Beauty and the Beast. I’d watch these and then play make- believe, pretending I was a princess being rescued and wooed by a handsome prince. Then came Disney Channel s
Thais Rulich-Maly
Dec 25, 2025
A Paradelle for Dorothy Parker
Decades after her death, Dorothy gets a headstone. Born during a hurricane, she was writer, poet, satirist. Dorothy (writer, poet, satirist) was born during a hurricane. Decades after her death, she gets a headstone at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, Her epitaph: Leave for her a red young rose. In the Bronx, at Woodlawn Cemetery, leave for her a red young rose, her epitaph. A hurricane threatened while gin was sipped from flasks; as Parker’s very pretty dust finally came to r
Alison Jennings
Dec 25, 2025
Laughing at the Sky
Someone’s set my soul loose; I can’t get her back. She’s out there, dancing wildly, wonderfully released. Prior craziness now seems justified—those midnight escapades to the underworld, hoping (like Persephone) to be rid of earthly chores; the foolhardy fearlessness that bared its teeth at friend and foe alike: all symptoms of an overheated heart, surging upward like a volcano, spitting out sparks and toxic fumes from a core of molten energy, the creative source within. It’s
Alison Jennings
Nov 12, 2025
Yizkor 2019
The seats on either side of me appear empty, but I know my mother is sitting in one of them. The scent of her perfume, (why didn’t I ever ask the name? ) blends with that of the white flowers banked on either side of the bima. I can sense her eyes shining with tears. (I cry easily too; we share that.) There was rarely any physical contact—no hugs, no gentle touches–I always wondered why, but I can imagine the soft skin of her face, unlined and glowing even as she turned nine
Gail Arnoff
Nov 11, 2025
The World Awaits
Her tiny fingers grasp my hand; dark pools of eyes follow me. The first light creeps beneath the curtains. Black curls like tendrils wind round shell-like ears with rose-pink lobes. Outside the world waits impatiently. The dew on the grass is burning off. In the distance, tongues of surf, lick lazily up the wet, smooth sand. Out at sea, white horses fret and foam. I lift my daughter gently from the cot. A tentative smile hovers on puckered lips. My hands support a strengtheni
Sarah Das Gupta
Nov 11, 2025
Inward and Onward
In a metropolis inhabited by millions, Liz expects to avoid seeing anyone too familiar in her happy space, away from the cacophony of noise in New York City streets. She often escapes into stories finding solace in the pages of books, and making peace with being alone, a single- family unit. She strolls along 34th Street bundled in a Burberry scarf wrapped around her neck like the muffler her mother used to tie when she was a little girl. Entering Barnes and Noble, Liz smells
Edna Schneider
Nov 11, 2025
Shade
Lounging on the back patio in the shade of the cool evening, I soak in the relief of the heat dropping away. My attention drifts from the dogs playing in the grass and the tall, cool glass of lemonade in my hand to the story of my past. I can’t help but pinch myself. How is this my life? I didn’t come from a family with a back patio. Instead of watching dogs play in the grass, I’d often hide from a pack of strays fighting on an asphalt road chock-full of potholes. And I never
Jodie Elrod
Nov 11, 2025
WOMEN WRITERS. VIBRANT VOICES. STAY IN THE LOOP
bottom of page