Newsletter #26

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Dear Friends,

Have a wonderful June full of inspiration, happy moments, and joy.

May was full of beautiful stories in Catharsis Chronicles.

My beloved editors had a lot of hard work to do. So, give your best support to John Hansen PAL, Mariana Busarova, Bella Smith ⭐, and the wonderful girl whose country is under alert, and yet she never lets anything stop her from you and your work, Paras Ali.

Let’s proceed with our usual stuff, starting with the pieces written and published in **Catharsis Chronicles** by our super editors!

EDITORS’ CORNER

• **Mother Remembered Forever by John Hansen PAL**
• **AI, Substack, and Cryptocurrency by John Hansen PAL**
• **Passionless Observers by Mariana Busarova**
• **Wanderer by Mariana Busarova**
• **My Ma by Paras Ali**
• **Down the Ruins Once I Met My Man by Paras Ali**
• **Once I Met My Man by Paras Ali**

And now, the pieces that do not have the stats they deserve.

MUST READ

• Epiphany of Red Eye and Blood Leather Pants by Mike Ketch🖌
• But Why? by Alan Campbell
• My Dying Father Asked Me an Impossible Question by Lela Hannah
• Deleting Old Messages Felt Like Grieving Someone Twice. by Sandra Brown🧚‍♀️
• Malice Aforethought by John E Marks
• For Chris** by John E Marks
• My Heart is a Graveyard by Ember Forrest
• YOU SEEM FINE by The Masked Muse
• 17 Ways of Looking at the Thorny Issue of Forgiveness by Susan R Goldberg
• Blackwater Hollow by Pen & Page
• Duality by Bella of Thoughtsnlifeblog
• My Angel, My Daughter by Aaron Waddell
• Unfolding the Eternal Now by Rolando Andrade
• Revision by Robert Glover
• Feathers v. Sails by Derek J. Allison
• Twilight With You by Samantha 🥀
• Why I am Sometimes Deliberately Uncooth by Hermione Wilds Writes: artist, editor, mum
• Grief That Begins While Parents Are Alive by Fiza Ameen
• When Misery Loves Company by Padmini Patwardhan
• Tell Me Everything by Laura Constantinescu
• My Focus by Greg Sullivan
• Embarrassing A Democrat Governor At The 1980 Convention by Michael A. Kroll
• Genie in the Bottle by Suzanne Henderson
• Shall I Be Released? Exactly How? by Sarah Scorze
• Trusting God with All the Details by Hadassah Treu I Author
• Fate by Laura Constantinescu
• This is My Daughter? by Rolando Andrade
• Walk Away by Zizi Majid
• The Weird Year by Victoria Ponte

Now, let’s move on to the recent stories, published after May 25, and have not yet peaked in their statistics.

RECENT STORIES

• Reparenting My Inner Child While Parenting My Child by Sandy Maximus
• A Question That Fills the Lungs by Blake Alan
• Accounting by Susan R Goldberg
• The Salt Bride by Pen & Page
• We’ve Drifted Apart by Suma Narayan
• Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall by Trishna Utamchandani
• What Not to Say to a Grieving Person by Lela Hannah
• What Did I Do To Be Born So Naive in a Place So Wild? by Deeksha Agrawal
• If He Were a Book by Ember Forrest
• The Constancy and the Ecstasy by Aaron Waddell
• On Parade by Derek J. Allison
• The Emotional Debt Collector by Ember Forrest
• Charli’s Story by Carolyn Hastings

We go on with our top stories, based on the stats!

TOP STORIES

• I Am Not Okay, But I Am Trying Yana Bostongirl
• We Poets Never Have It Easy by A.H. Mehr
• The Beauty of Now by Pavan kumar
• The Walls of Greediness by Douglas Lim
• This Is How I Want To Live by Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles
• For the Woman Stranded in Life by A.H. Mehr
• Here In This Domain by Cecile Gerwel Proches
• The World Feels Heavy Lately by Dawn J.
• Traces Of Closure by Cecile Gerwel Proches
• The Abruptness of Grief by A.H. Mehr
• Every Vein in My Body Screams Your Name by Aleena Huda
• I Thought Being “Easygoing” Made Me a Good Person by Khusi chauhan
• That guy was pretty awful, I should know, I used to be him by Sarah Scorze
• Don’t Be Too Attached to Your Life, After All, It’s Only Temporary. by Aleena Huda
• Tell Me a True Lie — ദ്ദി ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ ) by Tochukwu Godswill Amos ✨☕
• For My Son by Author, D. Denise Dianaty
• What Is Ugly? by Author, D. Denise Dianaty
• Sunshine Blogger Challenge by Author, D. Denise Dianaty
• Forbidden Identity! by Golam Rob

COMPETITION

Before starting with your favourite part of the newsletter, I need to say something once again. Some of you have asked me about the procedure for choosing the winners.

Well… Each judge, including myself, selects the entries deemed most outstanding. These selections are compiled into a single list and submitted to the chair of the committee, Smillew Rahcuef, who finally determines the four winning pieces.

This month’s contest was really deep, and we had the chance to grade some amazing pieces. Maybe the hardest choice we ever had to make.

The judge-committee was, as usual, the following:

Master John Hansen PAL — our great poet and writer; Bella Smith ⭐ — our Dark Queen; Mariana Busarova — the Editor in Chief and brilliant writer, Paras Ali — the desert flower; Chrysa and the chair of the committee; and our beloved multitasker Smillew Rahcuef❤️.

The four winners, in random order, are:

• **Mum is Resilient; Milk Thistle by Marilyn Glover**
• **Not As She Seemed, and Exactly as She Appeared by Sarah Scorze**
• **My Seven-Stage Mom by Nevena Pascaleva**
• **Where’s the Mother’s Day Card for Our Relationship? by Joe Guay — Dispatches From the Guay Life!**

Congratulations, guys!

Now, here are the rest of the equally amazing entries in the order of publishing!

• The Unconscious Ways My Mother Lives On by Marcia Abboud
• Competition — How Do You Grieve A Mother? by Annelise Lords
• My Inheritance of Mutilation by Michael A. Kroll
• Competition — What Cycle Does Your Mother Represent — And Will You Continue or End It? by Annelise Lords
• The Curl on the Corner of the Carpet by Amy Slanger
• An Afternoon of Water-Circles by Sue Banerji
• A Mother’s Many Faces by Erosia Potter
• My Mother Was a Masterclass In Being Human by Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles
• Competition — What Did Your Mother Pass Down To You? by Annelise Lords
• The Mother I Never Had by Terry McLeod
• Nikki’s Unfiltered — What Mothers Carry by Nikki’s Unfiltered
• White Threads by Bettina Sieber

And the pieces from our editors that, unfortunately, are not eligible to be graded:

• **Mother Remembered Forever by John Hansen PAL**
• **My Ma by Paras Ali**

POET OF THE MONTH

This month, we’ve chosen a new friend as our Top Writer. Though relatively new to Medium, Sarah Scorze has already established herself as a voice that is impossible to ignore. Every piece she writes leaves a lasting impression.

Sarah was one of our four winners in April, and she has earned a place among our May competition winners as well — an achievement that speaks to both her talent and consistency.

She writes about her personal experiences with remarkable honesty, confronting life’s challenges head-on and refusing to be silenced by adversity. Her courage, authenticity, and powerful storytelling make her a truly deserving choice for this month’s Top Writer.

If you haven’t followed her or read her work, please do, and you won’t regret it.

Here are some of the pieces she published with us.

• **That guy was pretty awful, I should know, I used to be him**
• **Shall I Be Released? Exactly How?**
• **Not As She Seemed, and Exactly as She Appeared**

In a few hours, the new competition will be out, so stay tuned!

That was all for May. Hopefully, June will be a great month…

Thank you all for everything!