Thea Swanson is a feminist atheist who holds an MFA in writing from Pacific University in Oregon and is the founding editor of Club Plum literary journal. Her flash-fiction collection, Mars, was published by Ravenna Press in 2017. Her hybrid essay and poem collection, How to Be a Woman, was longlisted for the 2021 Dzanc Nonfiction Prize. Her poetry, short stories, and essays are published in many journals.
A writer uses a step-by-step guide as a mode of recounting her past pains as an American Orthodox priest’s wife, then comes full circle to the present as she grapples with her powerlessness yet a…