Women Rising Strong

Stories and reflections about women, life, and becoming who we are.

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Thursday Reflections

I’m glad you’re here

I'm S.A. Sterling, a writer, teacher, and endlessly curious woman who has always been interested in other women's lives.

I created Women Rising Strong because I wanted a place to tell their stories—and, eventually, some of my own.

I'm interested in the big things: courage, change, identity, relationships, aging, starting over. But I'm just as interested in the smaller things. The choices we make without telling anyone. The roles we fall into. The things we carry for years before we realize we're carrying them.

You'll find stories of remarkable women here, but you won't find many perfect ones. I'm much more interested in what happens when life gets complicated and we have to figure out who we are now.

I don't have everything figured out either. That's part of why I write.

So have a look around. Read something. Stay awhile. And if something here makes you stop and think, then Women Rising Strong is doing what I hoped it would do.

Empowerment Vault

Essays and reflections on courage, identity, and change.

Inspiring Women

Profiles of women across sports, healthcare, arts, and STEM.

Thursday Reflections

A weekly letter — one honest reflection, every Thursday.

  • “I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.”

    Frida Kahlo turned her own body, identity, pain and experience into art, refusing to look away from herself.

  • “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

    Audre Lorde was a poet and activist whose work explored identity, injustice, difference and the power of speaking for ourselves.

  • “I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear.”

    Rosa Parks became an enduring symbol of courage and resistance through an act that helped change the course of the American civil rights movement.

  • “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

    Through Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë gave us a woman insisting on her freedom, dignity and right to choose her own life.

  • “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

    Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress and spent her career challenging who was allowed a seat at the table.

  • “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

    Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose writing explores women’s lives, identity, resilience, and the importance of recognizing our own agency.

Latest from the Blog

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The Things We Understand Too Late: Reading Natalia Ginzburg’s Caro Michele
The Things We Understand Too Late: Reading Natalia Ginzburg’s Caro Michele

Natalia Ginzburg’s Caro Michele made me think about the things we often understand too late: the happiness hidden inside ordinary days, the words we never said, the lives of those we love but can never fully know, and the strange way regret becomes part of everyday life.

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All The Women I Could Have Been: On Midlife, Choice, and the Parallel Lives We Carry
All The Women I Could Have Been: On Midlife, Choice, and the Parallel Lives We Carry

There's a version of me who still plays Chopin in Venice every evening. Another who never left her village. One whose business card says International Liaison Officer.

Sometimes I miss them. Not with regret. More like a quiet ache for what will never be true.

This is about the tension we don't talk about enough: loving the life you have while still grieving the ones you left behind. The parallel selves we carry. The women we almost were.

Because maybe courage isn't picking the "right" path. Maybe it's picking a path and learning to live with all the ones you didn't take.

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WHY I WROTE AWAKE
WHY I WROTE AWAKE

I woke up at 2:47 a.m. most nights. Perimenopause, they said. Hormones. Stress. Age. But knowing why didn't make it easier. I felt completely alone—just me, the clock, and the weight of being awake when I didn't want to be. So I started writing it down. 60 nights became a book. Not to fix it. Just to say: you're not alone in this.

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