Samantha Lucia – Writers Resist

Welcome to Writers Resist the Summer 2026 Issue

This is Writers Resist‘s tenth summer, and this issue is one of our most challenging—not solely due to its size. Perhaps it’s the prolonged exposure to putrid politicians (a putrescence of politicians, if you’ve an affinity for terms of venery) that has inspired the constellation of passions reflected in the issue. From the analogies in nature’s invasives, in Danita Dodson’s poem, to raging against ICE, in Karen Crawford’s spoken word poem, these creations ring the truth, the despair, the joy, the hope. And we hope you find all this as you make your way through the summer of 2026.

The virtual reading for this issue is on Saturday 11 July at 5:00 pm PACIFIC. Please email us at writersresist@gmail.com for the Zoom link.

Now, a little note from our publisher: I admit defeat; YouTube and I are not friends. While I seek absolution from the literary gods and our contributors who’ve been asking to see their recorded readings, I’m praying for someone who will teach me how to post our readings on YouTube. I have the basics (sort of), but they need those opening and closing title slide thingies, and more patience than I’ve been able to muster. If someone will take pity and walk me through the process, I will be exceedingly grateful. If you’re out there, please send me an email at kbgressitt@gmail.com.

Finally, and most important, Writers Resist the Summer of 2026:

Invasives by Danita Dodson

Goodbye and Good Riddance by Carolyn Gevinski

Deliverance by Phyllis Wax

13 Ways of Looking at Wicked by Suzanne Edison

Insurance Approved by Samantha Lucia

CASE FILE #1776″ The Murder of Lady Liberty by Daniel P. Douglas

astomatous by Victoria Reyes

Flying Free by Marc Audet

The In-Between by Krista Lee Hanson

The Law by Anne Reiner

The Boy by Raima Larter

Fog of War by Laura Buxbaum

How to Ignite Polite Fires by Em Arata-Berkel

In the Unlikely Event by Rebecca Watkins

While Europe Was Burning by Tytti Heikkinen

Someone Will Be Right With You by Laura Grace Weldon

Fruit Flies by Deborrah Corr

No Quarter by Julie Gard

Two Poems by Erin Vaughn

Dear Colleague: by Shannon Frost Greenstein

To the League of Extraordinary Ladies by Sarah Gane Burton

They Forget by Mandy Prell

Something So Small by Phebe Jewell

The Janus of Freedom by D. Edgar Cook

To those out there with hope by Catherine Zickgraf

Winter in Certain American Cities by Alina Zollfrank

Unbroken by Karen Crawford

Photo credit: K-B Gressitt.

A Note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.

Insurance Approved

By Samantha Lucia

I said yes to permanence at 27
They called it ESSURE
They called it SAFE

Two metal coils
threaded
into fallopian tubes
like promises — like policy

market-vetted
APPROVED
No incisions
In-office procedure

Try coils
thrust raw
into tubes
unanesthetized

Women’s pain
thresholds

Twelve years of
my body screaming,
“STOP!”

And physicians saying,
“PROVE IT.”

The coils scarred over — created blockages
leaked nickel into unwilling tissue

Inflammation exploded
a language I couldn’t speak — but couldn’t stop speaking
A language of pain that
bent me,
bowed me,
made me small

Pain that doesn’t image—
So, they decide,
“You’re imagining.”

                                                                                          even after the
                                                                                          BLACK BOX
                                                                                          warning

                                                                                          even after they
                                                                                          PULLED it
                                                                                          from the
                                                                                          market

Physicians looked and declared,
“Essure doesn’t cause this.”

They KNEW

The market’s small print
had written itself into my organs
in allergy ink

Certified itself
in bedridden years of,
“We need a biological excuse.”

A woman’s pain isn’t valued enough
to remove its source

A woman’s suffering only matters
when it can be CODED
365 days
of merciless bleeding

My body performed its loudest proof —
its most monetizable symptom

Until the insurance surrendered to
a code it recognized

‘Murderous Coils’— NO
‘Diseased Uterus’— YES

INSURABLE

A hysterectomy at 39

                                                                                          becoming
                                                                                          algorithm-
                                                                                          legible

                                                                                          becoming
                                                                                          profitable
                                                                                          loss

The market sold me the device
The market cut it out

They logged it . . . TWICE

Samantha Lucia (she/her) is a queer poet and photographer living in the American South who writes from the archive of a body the record kept getting wrong. Her work has appeared in Corporeal, Poetries in English, MENACE, Witches Magazine, Twisted Tongue, Spellbinder, and January House, among others, and is forthcoming in the 1455 Books: Women Writers Anthology (2026). Follow her on Instagram @iamsamanthalulu.

Photo credit: Ittmust via a Creative Commons license.