Category: Guest Posts

Shattering Stigmas: When Grief Meets Courage by Sierra

For today’s Shattering Stigmas post, I have my friend Sierra sharing a post about grief, depression and courage. This is a great post and I hope you all enjoy it. I hope you also check out Shattering Stigmas co-hosts, Shannon, Mari and Taylor’s blogs as they’re sharing amazing posts to help shatter stigma too. CW/TW: Depression, mention of suicide, mention of self-harm (not done) Our culture has an intriguing obsession with the concept of courage. I, on the other hand, never have. It always bothered me growing up that the heroes of our favorite stories had to be courageous in order to actually be the hero. Harry had to be a Gryffindor, defined by his bravery, in order to take down Voldemort. Tris had to join the reckless, brave kids of Dauntless to forge a new path for herself. And Katniss had to literally stick her neck out to take her sister’s place in the games. What about the Dracos and Cedrics of the world? The Gales and the Calebs? Were they not brave, too, or do we simply negate their experiences because they weren’t the ones facing Voldemort down with the wand? (Sorry, Cedric, bad example.) I have puzzled over […]

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Posted October 16, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts / 283 Comments

Shattering Stigmas: Struggling With Anorexia by Rebecca Alora

Hi all. Today for Shattering Stigmas, I have my friend, Rebecca sharing her story with eating disorders. There are content warnings below. As a reminder, please check out Shattering Stigmas co-hosts posts as well! Taylor, Shannon and Mari are sharing great posts. CW/TW: Eating Disorders, Anorexia I wrote about my battle with anorexia a few years ago for Shattering Stigmas and I protected someone I shouldn’t have protected. I felt like I owed him some kind of respect because he was my doctor for seven years and it wasn’t always bad. However, you can’t heal if you rewrite history and I’ve hated myself for the past two years for not calling him out on what he did. So here’s my unfiltered story. If you’re still struggling with an eating disorder and are easily triggered: PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS. Growing up, I’d known several people who struggled with eating disorders. I sympathized and understood the mechanics, but I didn’t understand it. Food was good to me. Until it wasn’t. When I was in my early twenties my General Practitioner lost patience with me. He was concerned about my health, specifically that I would develop diabetes. At first he told me to eat […]

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Posted October 13, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts / 283 Comments

Shattering Stigmas: Fifteen Years by Mia Siegert

Hey everyone. Wednesday was a little chaotic with my sister going into labor, so I didn’t get the chance to put up a post yesterday. Waiting for babies is exhausting. 😂 I’m so happy to share this guest post with you all by Mia Siegert. Mia was previously on my blog in 2016 with an interview. I’m so honored they decided to share their story with me today for Shattering Stigmas. Please be sure to read the content and trigger warnings before proceeding. 🧡🧡 CW/TW: PTSD, Depression, Abuse, mention of Self-Harm, Animal Death (*NOT* in grotesque detail), mention of Suicide, issues with food – A/N: This is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. I don’t like being vulnerable, but given what I write about—how my upcoming book SOMEBODY TOLD ME deals with depression and abuse and JERKBAIT deals with suicide and bullying (both dealing with toxic masculinity in very different facets—I decided to open up. I have provided content/trigger warnings above and apologize if I miss anything, and with victimhood and addressing it, I hope this might be able to help anyone who is struggling, not in the “it gets better” sense, but in the “I’m glad I’m still here […]

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Posted October 11, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts / 59 Comments

Shattering Stigmas: Understanding Her Mental Health by Kimberly Canady

Today for Shattering Stigmas, Kimberly is sharing her story with mental health and what she’s learned about herself. Hi everyone! My name is Kimberly (she/her) and for the Shattering Stigmas event I’ve decided to discuss with you all my journey with mental health, both in a general sense and based on my own experiences. I’ve shared bits and pieces across social media about my anxiety and experiencing anxiety/panic attacks but not about how I came to learn about this part of myself; today I’d like to change that. During high school, I didn’t really fit in with my peers. Sure there were people I would’ve considered my friends (though this wasn’t exactly consistent throughout the time I was in school) and they weren’t negative towards me in any way, there was just this feeling in the back of my mind where I knew I was never going to be an essential member of a friend group. There were times when I spent lunch on my own and that made me feel really lonely. The way I found I could get through these feelings was by watching YouTube videos. I would say around a year after getting into watching […]

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Posted October 9, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts, Uncategorized / 7 Comments

Shattering Stigmas: The Quest For Better Mental Health Awareness by Nia Carnelio

Hi all! I’m so happy to share the first amazing guest post for Shattering Stigmas. I love that Nia has shared a more informative post while discussing the current stigmas regarding mental illness in India. I always like learning more about how the non-Western world is doing with mental health. Thank you so much, Nia! Writing about mental health and wellness is always a tricky subject for me — people are quick to judge and dismiss it as something you’re making up or tell you that “it’s all in your head,” which is really ironic because like Dumbledore once said (in an unrelated context), “Of course it is happening inside your head. . .but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” In theory, talking about mental health and the brain seems easy. That’s why you’ve got volumes upon volumes on the brain — on how and why it functions (or doesn’t) the way it does, what happens when it doesn’t function the way we expect it to and how we can fix it. All this sounds interesting in theory, sure. But when it comes to understanding the impact of mental illnesses, we all fall short. A lot […]

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Posted October 8, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts / 14 Comments

Poetic Justice Featuring: Queen Majeeda

Hi everyone. I’m so happy it’s finally Friday. I’m dying for a break from work. Today I have QueenMajeeda sharing a guest post with us. She participated in Poetic Justice last year as well. You can read that post here. Poetic Justice is a month long event, beginning April 1st to April 30th in honor of National Poetry Month. Throughout April there will be interviews, guest posts, excerpts and other poetic posts. I hope you will follow along. To read the introductory post, you can find out more here The Potency of Poetry by Queen Majeeda The power of the word is a fact often overlooked. The written word carries such potency that it has the ability to last through the ages of time. So much is the power of the word that it can affect our emotions. That’s what poets do with their craft. They arouse and sometimes even mimic our emotions. Other poets summon a call to action through their writings. Poetry is often used as an expression whenever people are in love or whenever there is an uprising. Poetry stirs up the heart and emboldens the weak. Poetry is sometimes the voice of the people as they […]

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Posted May 10, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts, Poetic Justice / 51 Comments

Poetic Justice Featuring: Amanda N. Butler

Hey everyone. I hope you’ve had a good weekend. My weekend went by really fast. To kick off this Monday, I have Amanda N. Butler with us for a guest post. Amanda participated not once, but twice last year. She’s an over-achiever. ❤️ You can find her interview here and the guest post on submitting poetry here. I hope you enjoy this lovely post on marketing your poetry by her. Poetic Justice is a month long event, beginning April 1st to April 30th in honor of National Poetry Month. Throughout April there will be interviews, guest posts, excerpts and other poetic posts. I hope you will follow along. To read the introductory post, you can find out more here Marketing Your Poetry Amanda N. Butler Writing a collection of poetry is akin to spilling pieces of your heart onto the paper. Your writing becomes of part of you, a representation of your unique perspective. So when you decide to get your work out there in the world, you may decide that self-publishing is the best option for your work. In this case, there will not be an entity marketing your work for you. In self-publishing, writing is half the work; marketing […]

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Posted May 6, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts, Poetic Justice / 207 Comments

Poetic Justice Featuring: Gretchen Gomez

Hello everyone. Today I have Gretchen Gomez sharing a guest post for Poetic Justice. Last year, Gretchen wrote a great guest post on the benefits to reading poetry, so I’m so happy she’s participating again. You can read her post here. Poetic Justice is a month long event, beginning April 1st to April 30th in honor of National Poetry Month. Throughout April there will be interviews, guest posts, excerpts and other poetic posts. I hope you will follow along. To read the introductory post, you can find out more here Finding Inspiration While Dealing With Writer’s Block Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well today and if not, then I’m sending you loads of love from this side of the planet (The Bronx). Firstly, I want to thank the amazing Amber for another year of featured poets on her blog!! Last year was great! When Amber sent me the list of topics to cover, I jumped immediately to this one because recently I’ve been learning about my own writers block and how I handle it. Hopefully today I get to shed some light on that. With that, I also want to get into some other topics that sorta go […]

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Posted May 2, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts, Poetic Justice / 9 Comments

Poetic Justice Featuring: D. E. Kerr

Welcome to my next Poetic Justice post. I am so excited to share this amazingly honest and real post by Dayle today. It is so honest and important. I hope you enjoy it. There are content warnings below so please pay attention to those. Dayle also participated in Poetic Justice last year, you can read her post here. Poetic Justice is a month long event, beginning April 1st to April 30th in honor of National Poetry Month. Throughout April there will be interviews, guest posts, excerpts and other poetic posts. I hope you will follow along. To read the introductory post, you can find out more here Trauma Has No Timeline: How Poetry About Trauma Connects Us CW: Trauma, abuse There’s a taboo on trauma. Talking about your trauma matter of factly, or even at all. People side eye you, or don’t know how to react, so eventually you stop talking about it, even when you want to. Yet, it leaks through, moreso for the artists of the world, paint on canvas, ink on paper, the keys of a computer. Then, all we create is based on trauma. I’m no different, I remember writing furiously daily about […]

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Posted May 1, 2019 by Amber in Guest Posts, Poetic Justice / 43 Comments

Poetic Justice: Social Media Poetry and Where to Find Inspiration by Ashley Jane

Wow, I cannot believe this is the final post for my event, Poetic Justice. It went by so fast, it was so stressful but so much fun. I’ll be detailing more on my behind-the-scene feels in a later post. I’m so happy about all of the poets that participated! For the last post, Ashley asked if a prompt based post would be good and I said it would be great! I thought putting it as the last post would help inspire poetry in the rest of the year. I hope you all enjoy! Poetic Justice is a month long event, beginning April 1st to April 30th in honor of National Poetry Month. Throughout April there will be interviews, guest posts, excerpts and other poetic posts. I hope you will follow along. To read the introductory post, read about my poetic background as well as the schedule for the month, you can find out more here. As social media evolves, so do its users. From Facebook pages to Instagram photos to the 280 character spaces of twitter, poetry abounds. When I first joined Twitter, a little over four years ago, it was not by choice. I was late to the […]

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Posted April 30, 2018 by Amber in Guest Posts, Poetic Justice / 47 Comments