Inspiration – Flourish Magazine

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

3 weeks 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

3 weeks 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

3 weeks 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

3 weeks 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

4 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

4 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

4 months ago

Grandmothering: How my granddaughter teaches me to see the world anew

By Jane Pohlman “First, I was Mom … now, I’m Grandma.” These are the words displayed on a T-shirt I bought when I learned I would become Grandma for the first time. I wear that shirt proudly. Both titles mean the world to me. First, I was Mom: I am the mother of three beautiful […]

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4 months ago

from the editor, Winter 2024: Give

We were on an archaeological dig in the Andean Highlands of Peru and had gotten back from the field for the day; the children from the village were waiting for us. I didn’t speak Spanish, but one of the field school directors had brought out some pencils and a few sheets of paper for the […]

Mia Pohlman

7 months ago

from the editor Fall 2024: Body

Our bodies are vessels that are very good. They mediate our experiences with the world and are truly awe-inspiring in what they can do — so nuanced, so detailed, so intentionally relational. But too often, this wonder and awe isn’t what women experience in relation to our bodies, and especially in regards to the most […]

Mia Pohlman

10 months ago