Following the acclaimed launch of its debut issue, Thorn & Bloom — the literary magazine redefining self-care as resistance — presents its bold second edition, Breaking the Cycle. This quarterly publication continues its mission to fuse personal healing with collective liberation, now turning its lens toward dismantling oppressive narratives that bind us.
Thorn & Bloom 02: Breaking the Cycle features bold voices that interrogate societal conditioning and explore how unlearning can forge pathways to personal and political freedom. Where the first issue laid the foundation for self-care as radical honesty, this edition pushes further, offering language as a tool for fracture, freedom, and rebirth, all through essays, poetry, fiction, and expert insight.
“True liberation begins when we disrupt the stories imposed upon us,” says the editorial team. “This issue is an invitation to unlearn, to rise, and to rewrite.”
Inviting readers are over two dozen contributors, including Kara Dorris, Agbeye Oburumu, Grace Flaherty, CJ The Tall Poet, Rita Moe, Melanie White-Heron, Kristy Ettel, Mars Gorman, Mary M. Brown, Margaret Gibbs, Taslym Umar, Tinamarie Cox, and Rachel Turney, among others.
Rooted in inclusivity and empowerment, Thorn & Bloom is a haven for stories that break open and build a new, where vulnerability meets defiance, and self-care becomes revolution. Here, storytelling is not just art but alchemy, turning pain into power and words into weapons of liberation.
