Women & Leadership
From arts activism to full-spectrum leadership…voices from the vanguard.
Writing to Right the World: Editor’s Introduction
In this Fired Up! special edition, a group of young people share their critique of the world as it is, and their visions for making it better.
Climate Change and Consciousness: Now is our time! Editor’s column by Jennifer Browdy
This special edition of Fired Up! will energize and inspire you. And there’s much more coming up!
Climate Change & Consciousness Community Reading, Deb Koffman’s Artspace, Housatonic MA, April 16, 2019
A paean to climate change & consciousness, in a multitude of voices.
From the Editors: Keep Your Creative Fires Burning!
At Fired Up! we want to know: What do you care about? What makes your heart sing or your blood boil?

Dear Man-who-was-pumping-gas
We need men to call each other out on harassment and educate their male friends.

What Does It Mean to Be a Woman?
“We can start by accepting that femininity is not a weakness, but a space for each of us to grow in a world that forces us to shrink.”

Women & Leadership from a non-binary perspective
“No offense, but the cis understanding of gender, on an emotional level, fundamentally lacks nuance.”

Sowing the Seeds of Female Leadership
“Being a leader is about inspiring others to dream big and grow. Women leaders never stop growing.”




Little Insignificant Things, by Deb Koffman
Little insignificant things can actually make a BIG difference.

Berkshire Earth Expo 2018
Photos from the 2018 Earth Expo, presented by The Berkshire Environmental Action Team, Living the Change Berkshires, 350MA-org Berkshire Node, and many other affiliated organizations and businesses.

Sometimes there are no words, only feelings, by Deb Koffman
I hope that my work encourages your well-being, helping you navigate your emotional and mental life more easily.

Opposite Colors, by Raquel Partnoy
A new series of paintings, “Opposite Colors,” exposes an Argentina divided by the hatred generated by the forces of neoliberalism.

Photographer Rodney Tate Captures the Beauty of Birds
Photographer Rodney Tate of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, is out almost every day capturing images of birds–especially the shore birds and eagles that stalk and soar around the beaches near his home.

The Phenomenal Woman: A Poem Series

Outcast, by Rose Oliver
This is not my home.
No boundaries contain me,
I go where I’m not wanted,
wipe my feet on the
the unwelcome mat.



Remember the Great Flood, by Stewart Mintzer

An excerpt from SLIPPER, by Hester Velmans
SLIPPER is the story of a poor orphaned stepchild, a would-be princess, whose search for one true love or another takes her all over 17th century England, France and the Low Countries. Born under mysterious circumstances, she grows up to be a dreamer, a cinder sweep, a runaway, a camp follower, a kisser of frogs, a beggar, a thief, a mother and an artist. Along the way she learns what to do about men. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that her life is a fairy tale come true.

Can a Tree Teach Race Relations? Magnolia Justice, by Jana Laiz
I often dream entire passages or lines for books I’m writing and one night, I woke with this line, “I remember the Winter long ago, the one that lingered like regret.” I had to rustle around in my bedside table to find paper and pen to write it down. When your dreams offer you lines like that, you don’t say no. Later that same day, my husband came into my office and said, “You should write a story about a lynching tree from the point of view of the tree.”
Earth Day Expo 2018 in Dalton MA
Berkshire Earth Expo 2018