Diane Masiello is a part-time writer and a full-time mom, wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. Like many who are currently part of the “sandwich generation,” – those who still have kids at home but are also taking care of aging parents—she is also trying to find the time to carve out some space for her own passions. In her earlier life she earned a Ph.D. in Education from New York University, and worked as an Instructor of English, then Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tampa. In 2003 she left academia to raise her two daughters—the longest, hardest job she’s ever held, and the most rewarding. During her time in academia she edited and contributed to a variety of academic publications, but her greatest joy was the publication of her first short fantasy story, “The Sunspot,” in CrossTime Science Fiction Anthology Vol. II. She has her own blog, “Afternoons with Coffee Spoons,” which started as a mommy blog but ended when she realized her daughters had become old enough that writing about them without their permission seemed invasive. She has just completed her first young adult fantasy novel, Keeper, and is starting on the maze-like road toward publication. She is thrilled to be a part of The Gloria Sirens and looks forward to the conversations her blog posts may inspire.
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed? -bell hooks
Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe in this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us. -Anne Lamott
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one: you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to. -Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
A miscarriage is a natural and common event. All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven’t. Most don’t mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn’t happened, so people imagine a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had. But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And shel’ll know. -Barbara Kingsolver
Love and loss are like a ship and the sea. They rise together. The more we love, the more we have to lose. But the only way to avoid loss is to avoid love. And what a sad world that would be. -V.E. Schwab
In short, we need to take care of each other . . . . Sometimes it feels as if, when we can’t do the things we normally do for ourselves or others, we shouldn’t do anything at all. But these days, a text or a phone call can go a really long way. So don’t wait.
None of us know what we are capable of until we are tested. -Elizabeth Blackwell
In a sick society, women who have difficulty fitting in are not ill but demonstrating a healthy and positive response. -Charlotte Perkins Gilman
In a time of destruction, create something. A poem. A parade. A community. A school. A vow. A moral principle. One peaceful moment. -Maxine Hong Kingston
Things falling apart is a kind of testing but also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and they fall apart. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. -Pema Chodron
The Gloria Sirens 