Inspiration – Flourish Magazine

from the editor: Fall 2025, Collect

My bookshelf is the centerpiece of my home. There it stands in my living room, and it is the deepest compliment when people pay attention to it. I love to buy books because I love to write in them, and also because the physical copies are a visual representation of the invisible: This is what […]

Mia Pohlman

2 months ago

Halfway to Somewhere: A collection of reasons I love gas stations

By Jennifer Goodman There is something about gas stations that is chaotic and strangely comforting in its own eccentric way. A beautiful liminal space, the threshold from where you were and where you are going. It can feel almost otherworldly, like time slips beneath the flicker of fluorescent lights. The glow shows everything in an […]

flourish

2 months ago

A Walk in the Park Is a Walk Through Life: A collection of people I wish I knew

By San Srikant It’s the summer of 2023. I’m about to embark on my first solo plane ride. Seeing my cousin who lives in New York City. New York City. The city that never sleeps, the city that’s in a constant state of being. The city with the higher meaning. New York City. Where the […]

flourish

2 months ago

From the Editor, Summer 2025: Failure

A couple of years ago, one of my friends asked me if I’d ever felt like I’d failed at something. At the time, I honestly couldn’t think of an example from my own life. We got interrupted and never came back to the conversation, but sometimes I still think about that moment and what I […]

Mia Pohlman

5 months ago

Chasing Perfection: SEMO Gymnastics Team shares what they learn about failure from the sport they love

Taylor Ingle says she was a clumsy kid. Her parents wanted her to develop more coordination, so they signed her and her two sisters up for gymnastics. As soon as she tried the sport, it was love at first sight. Now, a decade and a half later, Ingle is a junior on the Southeast Missouri […]

Mia Pohlman

5 months ago

Epic Fails: Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out

We’ve all been there: We do something that’s not as graceful as we might have hoped, or something doesn’t turn out the way we imagined it. It happens to the best of us. Here, seven women offer up their embarrassing moments, in solidarity. On a nice day, I was practicing my cartwheels. Soon, on […]

flourish

5 months ago

Learning to Do the Puzzle: What failing to navigate solitude in college has taught me about patience

By Erin Urhahn I found a Disney puzzle in my basement in early high school and decided I wanted to put it together. It was either 500 or 1,000 pieces — I don’t remember which. I wanted to be good at it. I wanted to hold the colorful pieces between my fingers and feel the […]

flourish

5 months ago

from the editor, Spring 2025: New

When we first decided on the theme “new” for this Spring 2025 issue, I thought it would be a fun, lighthearted concept to explore. I kept thinking of images of wearing a new dress or buying a new keychain or getting a new haircut (always a gamble). But when we started putting the stories together, […]

Mia Pohlman

8 months ago

A Home is Created: On moving away from my hometown

By Jasmine Jones I spent the first 24 years of my life in Missouri, specifically Southeast Missouri. I’ve never called another place home. As a child, I remember pressing my face against the car window and memorizing every turn we took to get to Grandma’s house, the grocery store, school and mall. I was afraid […]

flourish

8 months ago

Dreams: Talking perseverance, deferment and fulfillment with filmmakers Shirlee Wilson and Fred Jones

More than a year ago, I had a conversation with filmmakers and wife/husband duo Shirlee Wilson and Fred Jones about their film “Sugarhouse,” in which they shared about their own trajectories as artists whose lives changed direction shortly after graduating from film school when they found out they were pregnant with their first child; after […]

Mia Pohlman

8 months ago