Our Anthem

We release the safety of a select, bounded circle around our creative lives

to open what is precious and valuable to us for engagement and expansion

We release the injustice of a woman’s “duty”

to claim the agency which sustains our creative wellbeing

We release the stricture that we must measure ourselves or be measured to determine our personal, creative worth

to make room for the belief that our creative work matters and freely shared will manifest a unique narrative and vision

We release the need for permission, hesitation, and deliberation

to publicly embrace and claim who we are and what we do as creative women without explanation or further delay

We release the assumption that there is only one destination for distinguished arts and letters

to paint a new world where our room is the waves

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“Hold and Release” by Kipp Crutchfield and Kristi Crutchfield Cox

I release the need to prove my worth through numbers alone to reclaim the power of intuitive wisdom shared between sisters when we rise together. Madison Montoya, Arizona, USA | I strive to release my deepest feelings about the state of my community and the world. Women must support one another to protect the future. Cheryl Romo, California, USA | I release the fear surrounding my creativity and embrace the love that is yet to come from it. Monica Luna, New Mexico, USA | The need for my plays to be produced by commercial, professional theaters… and my fears of being boring, talky or preachy when tackling challenges. Tita Anntares | I release the fear of failure in order to risk success. Ronna Perrin | I say Yes to the Light of my Self, unapologetic for Love of my Self, Kind and Caring to my Self, not requiring conformity to Bless my Self. Kristina Jordan, California, USA | Holding my breath under a wave until I surface, I release the looks of people watching me and claim the droplets on the surface as my friends. Mary McDermott | Seeking reward, rather than sharing freely, I lose my authentic voice. I release the bonds of fear and reclaim a spirit of freedom. Fear is fight, flight, or freeze. I reject these reactions and honor creative wellbeing. Nancy Phillips, Indiana, USA | Right now I have to snatch minutes at a time to just be me. I have full care of my husband of 65 yrs. who has Alzheimer’s. I miss my working brain. Barbara Garrett, California, USA | I release the constraint of other people’s perspective about the time I allocate to being “idle” and creative. I release the concern about spending time writing when I could be engaged in ventures that earn money and I reclaim my right to wander and wonder. Marva McClean, Florida, USA | The constraints of judgment and the lenses through which I am viewed To find the true freedom of uncompromising authenticity in life and expression. Beccy Riley, Cornwall, UNITED KINGDOM | Negativity; the past expectations. Joan Stevensyates | I release fear and anger to gain strength to do what I was born to do: sustain, nourish my creative well being for the growth of the world and others. Alexandra Newton Rios | I will release fruitless professional fears to sustain the sanctity of deeply-considered truths. Susan Gregory Thomas, New York, USA | To sustain creative well-being, I release perfectionism and overcommitment and reclaim mindfulness, personal space, and boundaries. Faith Ann Conlu, PHILLIPINES | I release my drifting, I am drifting now… letting what is there find me again. Hudley Flipside, California, USA | I release the need to attain the approval of others on my life and reclaim my independence. Debi Hudson | I will release toxic people and relationships and reclaim myself so I can try again at life. Brittney McArthur, California, USA | I release comparing my work and my creative journey to others. I reclaim my creative spark and my right to identify myself as a creative being. Maura Alia Badji, Virginia, USA | release anger frustration hurt pain resentment hatred reclaim love passion dignity self respect joy liberation freedom my voice my bodymysoulmylife. Q. Sybella Freedom | I release my limiting self-criticism and reclaim my inner, connected-to-All, creative self to claim my greatest potential. Lynn Gahman | I release the fear that I cannot support myself by selling my work and I reclaim my worthiness and deserving. Jaye Alison Moscariello, Massachusetts, USA | The Western Canon. Deborah Kelly, Colorado, USA | I wove Myanmar’s heritage, culture, and people into vibrant narratives, igniting introspection on identity and triumph. Aye Myitta Oo, Yangon, MYANMAR | My old way of thinking. Renee Reed, Ohio, USA | I release schedules set by men whose needs are antethetical to my own. I reclaim spiritual ears open to ancestral voices. I reclaim time. Maria James-Thiaw, Pennsylvania, USA | I release being understood and reclaim more understanding about me, myself, and mine with humanity. Additionally, I reclaim more transparency spaces. Oasis Love | Releasing fear of being seen and financial struggles. Reclaiming my identity and voice and joy after abuse. Sarah Kezman | I am ready to release others views and dreams for me and reclaim my own views and dreams, allowing me to live a life untethered. Sara Jewell, Minnesota, USA | I’m willing to release and dissolve my pain-body, reclaiming my voice. Emilia Cruickshank, Victoria, AUSTRALIA | All that I have dreamed, envisioned, explored, to come to fruition side by side, step by step, hand in hand, and in kind with like-minded human kind. Nedra Smith, Indiana, USA | I release the uncertainty, the restraint, the yesterdays… I reclaim my intensity, neediness, my wanting want, my pleasures… Nicole Miyashiro, Pennsylvania, USA | The past hopes and success, the drowned strength and intentions, the anchored expectations and obligations- simple intention of self and dreams. Kristi Crutchfield Cox, Oklahoma, USA | Release: Anxiety and worry without releasing compassion for others and self. Reclaim: Spontaneity and the resulting joy. Susan Kedzie, Minnesota, USA | I release the fear of scorn and abandonment. I claim my sisterhood when I share my art here. Catherine Reynolds, Arkansas, USA | I’m retiring from a job I hate in a few months. Opening a business in the spring. And I’m going to write because I love it. Angela Armstrong, Connecticut, USA | Release the internal prisons and claim the freedom to express myself as I am. Dalvaci Porto | The belief that I’m not good enough to be a writer and the feeling that I’m an imposter when I do finally sit down to write (and subsequently delete). Rebecca Bickel, Missouri, USA | I release the need to take it all on and do as much as I have been selflessly and I reclaim my right to be an expressive and emotive being to heal. Maria Weeks, Wisconsin, USA | Fear of the external at the expense of my true voice. Tiffany Krupa, New Jersey, USA | Fear and self doubt. Rachael MacDougall, California, USA | The paradoxical universe. Jen Conrad, Wisconsin, USA | I’m ready to release the last of my fear, every bit of it scraped out of me and fed to the ones who fed it to me as if it were truth. I was only a child. I’m reclaiming my life, my experience of it, my hope in it. And reclaiming my power over self and my inner peace. Crissy Fogarty, Colorado, USA | Any and all negativity, people and situations who bring any negativity. Shonda Buchanan, California, USA | The fear of being unloved if I don’t do. Latasha Perry, New Jersey, USA | I release my self-imposed slavery to obligation, ill health, and doubt, and in their place I welcome freedom, autonomy, and faith to light my room. Kathleen McCoy, New York, USA | I release the pain disappointment and despair of all past rejections. I choose to create my own path. Nancy Shiffrin, California, USA | The shackles on my heart that jail my spirit and silence my words. Mary Louis Sheehan, Florida, USA | To accept all my doubts and to proceed in spite of them. Cecile Moochnek, California, USA | Ready to cancel, clear, and delete vows of poverty, sabotage, and inadequacy to embrace my love of intention, renewal, self-esteem, and infinite possibilities! Shoshanna Rene, California, USA | I am ready to release my obsession with focusing on what I did wrong and ready to reclaim slow, with water, earth, air, tree…the expanse, you. Kathy Engel, New York, USA | Reclaiming sovereignty and my ancestral birthrights. Carmina Marquez, California, USA | Purge the addiction I’ve protected & lost all for it. This spark inside me held vigil- it’s dim but growing. 8 days clean after imprisonment release. Cara Cameron, California, USA | Releasing fear; reclaiming freedom. Sylvan Adams, California, USA | Oh my god, yes. Julia Magnet, New York, USA | I release home, as I have known, for a room of my own. Christina Hughes, Texas, USA | [I release] my motivation to create without interruption. Tandy Sturgeon-Wolff, Michigan, USA | I am ready to release the need for control. Larissa Marti | I have shucked the shell of definition. I rise to bloom as the woman, mother, teacher, artist, and lover that Spirit wants to sustain and celebrate. We release the fetters of “cant” and soar on the wings of “can.” Elizabeth Best, Kentucky, USA | I release responsibility for non-creative work and a perception of past failure to pursue the creative woman I’ve become, without boundaries. Beth Nelson, Colorado, USA | I release the need to spend my day doing things that aren’t my job. My work is to write. My way, in my room. I am ready to release my self doubt and reclaim my creative wellbeing. Self doubt is a thick wall between the mind and the creative soul. Pamela Leavey, Massachusetts, USA | As the brook follows a path to join the great river. I follow the path of authenticity. It will give way to the greatness of my potential. Cara Wheeler | I’m ready to release my connection to a toxic workplace, and to reclaim my dignity and brilliance as a member of all communities that I am a part of. Bhanu Kapil, Cambridge, UNITED KINGDOM | I become whole. My fractured voice resurfaces in one force. Reclaimed after a 58-year beating. I stop. Inhale. Exhale. Taste freedom. Unsilenced. Kim Nicolini, Arizona, USA | I am ready to release the devastating gasps of self-doubt and debilitating fear. My breath shall be pure, and free; my heart the loudest voice. Jennifer Dowd, California, USA | Fear of my own voice. Verna Wilder, California, USA | 64 years of the other life. Rebecca Quigley, Florida, USA | Leadership. Jenni Ho-Huang, SINGAPORE | I am ready to release my constraints to this life, this world, and reclaim the power that has been locked away inside of me. Melissa Mendelson, New York, USA | Fear of being judged by my name and identity in a field of predominantly white male writers. I release the fear of judgment from others. Makani Speier-Brito, California, USA | I am ready to release the fear of revealing my true self to the world, I claim my power to control my own path and live in my truth. I am ready! Susan Little, Glasgow, SCOTLAND | That my art needs to be serviced or given permission to exist or circulate by anyone other than myself. I control my craft. Chiara Atoyebi, Maryland, USA | I will say my piece, and have my peace all around me. I will release the truth I held – to keep the peace. I will – in my poetry, writings, carings. Martina DeBhulbh | SKY WOMAN Vast sky radiant sun steady mountain deep sea am I. Can you love me as I am: uncontainable, earth, sky woman? Vijali Hamilton, New Mexico, USA | I am ready to release my need to solve all problems and reclaim my desire to be in the creative moment! Lu Lynne Streeter, New Mexico, USA | We release prior restraint and censorship to make room for many voices and different perspectives. Maria DePaul, D.C., USA