This is a very nunsensical story that I have waited some time to tell.

In honor of National Poetry Day and poets whose dealings are sometimes dirty, I would like to share with you a grandiose story about poetic justice, since the nuns have a deep interest in it– and I do, too, for I have a deep interest in the nuns.

The nuns are still and probably ever will be waiting on divine poetic justice to kick in (Come on, Heavenly Father, come on; intercede for the downtrodden sistrrrs!) but they are, God love them or shake an infinite finger at them, impatiently patient souls. They are impatient by nature but patient by avowal. It’s a co-nun-drum, and they like to bang on it incessantly. You see: they have, as it happens, taken an oath to wait on the work of the Lord, but that does not mean they’re just going to sit on their Sistine laurels, no.

What it means is that in the meantime, they’re getting busy giving Hymn a good kick-start in the Papa Smurf pants. Until the Lord starts “takin’ care of business” (oh, and we know Hee will!), the nuns will hold down the karmic fort and behave as usual: bitching non-stop (nun-stop, really) and hitting the streets with an art-ill-ery of corporal pun-ishments up their (bad)(-ass) habit sleeves. (Ever mug a nun? I didn’t think so. In addition to having nothing to fork over, the Kevlar nuns are at least 100% made of bulletproof laminated woven fibers and titanium. The flesh, they are not of. The flash, however…)

So to the Joker of Justice go we. Let us commence the journey into dorkness with the hard fackts, which are hard ackts to follow but well worth the F -ort. In this case, the hard facts and acts to follow are all compact in a rather nun-becoming story of hard luck.

Yes, as you were about to surmise, every nun has a hard luck story. It’s the price of being a nun– or the sin-tax, so to speak, called upon by the Job. Without hard luck, there would be no nuns; this is why we sistrrrly sorts thank our heavenly Father for our hard luck every chance we get (except when Hee’s hard to get ahold of… Hee certainly does have a habit of putting us on hold!).

Though I’m only a probationary nun, I will tell you that I take my hard luck seriously. And that when it comes to hard luck-sistrrrs, I consider my story number nun.

I should explain. I am going to be thirty-nun (31 -> 1 = nun) years old this month, and that’s a lot of time in solitary confinement (what probationary nuns are destined to experience until they turn thirty-nun). Sure, I’m destined for a cell break, but whatever. The important detail here is that, during my hard time(s) here at the Shabby Abbey, I have borrowed at least thirty nun volumes of hard luck-stories compiled in Our Hard Luck-Library.

Want to know where I learned all my lessons about borrowing? From those who borrowed from me – and never gave back – a press that I invented.

But this essay is not about borrowing; it is about stealing. Let me tell you a story about the ex-nuns who taught me about stealing.

Unlike me, a HEX nun, ex-nuns are nuns of (s)inferior quality. They do not abide by a sistrrrly code of ethics nor by a divine code of ethics nor by any code of ethics whatsoever.

Ex-nuns are what we, in the convent, call the SCUM NUNS. Have my letters become bigger? Oh, they have! Dear me! Fancy that: when poetic justice comes, she comes in CAPS! (She also, Dear Readrrr, comes in gowns, but we’ll save that for another (hard)luck-story.)

This one hard luck-story of mine, in particular, started to nunfold back in January of 2013, when I was still on the streets, waiting to be picked up by a nun from my school days back at my hometown abbey, the Friary Priory, who planned to bring hyr good, hot self to meet me to play some old time hooky but who nunfortunately got held up in detention at her priory and couldn’t make it to me in the knick-knack paddy-whack of time, leaving me curbside and vulnerable to being picked up by any old sect of Lucifers disguised in big black fringe-topped surreys.

So there I was, feeling dejected because the Prioress That I Love Best had her hands tied because of the tyrannical takeover by the new “CEO” of the Friary Priory, Father Swastika (a sorry tale, indeed– one we will save for another time, when we are all drunk on the celebration of his departure from the missionary dispossession… I mean, position).

There I was waiting for the priory, back in 2013, to come to me, on a dead end between Lolita Lane, Dark Art Avenue and Sappho Street. But the priory never made it, and I, impatient probationary nun that I am, fell into foolery, believing in the first too-good-to-be-true pretty promise for sistrrrly life that came my way. I was “dealing.” Yes, I became a dealer– but not of traditional drugs. I became a poetry dealer, a go-between sistrrr poetry-prostitute used by two hard-core poetic-soul-stealing scum nuns who convinced me with poetic lies that they were going to take me in and keep me in their Sapphic family. I, who was led to believe I was headed on the road to somewhere heavenly, was, in fact, about to be used up and thrown out. Alas, not my first scum nun rodeo of this nature. I know how to look on the bright side when nuns reveal themselves to be scum.

Being tossed off the path of Sapphic-misuses was the best thing that every happened to me, in fact. Because, in the long nun-run, it led me to where I am now: at the Shabby Abbey, waiting, on probation.

Let me put all this as plainly-Jane-ly as possible:

As you know, I am a word-playing nun. I am language-creating nun, more than that, actually– a nun who writes with Sapphic awareness and who considers herself the first, or maybe fourth if you count Gertrude Stein, Sapphologist (the first-fourth rhetor devoted primarily to the development of a Strictly-Sapphic Language). I have many, many foremothers, but the foremother closest to my Sapphology is Mary Daly, whose Wickedary foregrounds my evolving uses.

During my hard luck in 2013, I was approached by a great and brilliant contemporary romantic poet with Sapphic leanings who had taken notice of me and my iconoclastic ways, in writing and beyond, and who saw me stuck “on the dead end corner” of life, bogged down with desperation and despair, staring into the sewer (whoever would call it a well!) of LO-neliness! Sistrrr Mar was her name, for she has a talent for marring anything good and holy that offers itself to her like a Sappic sacrifice. This recluse wanna be beatnik poet, who painted herself beatific and nun-like, seduced me with high praise and sweet, Sapphic promises of our mutual prosperity. Yes, Readrrr, she told me I was special and that she wanted me: that I was the chosen one, the one with whom she wanted to grow and prosper. Essentially, Readrrr, she groomed me. Know anything about that, Readrrr? Grooming?

She groomed me with her genius rhetoric and she seduced my ego with her praise of me and my words– and I fell like putty into her scheming hands. I became her Sapphic Sacrifice, to be offered on the Altar of Sappho. I was willing to be the Sapphic Lamb because I thought I was being offered on that altar to Sappho. But I was actually being offered to a garbage dump. Funny how life works out… now you know what I mean by hard-luck. But let me tell you a bit more.

Laynun’s Terms:

Sistrrr Mar wanted start a poetry press but was probably nervous about doing it on her own and thought I would be good person to do it with because of my artistic spirit, prolific-bent, good nature, charisma, and enthusiasm. She even stated at one point along the way that she asked me to start the press with her because of my “good heart.” That was her primary justification for asking me to join her. Her intuition and gravitation were all on-point; it was her own defunct sense of ethics and soured heart, however, that probably drew her toward the betrayal of a nun as “good-hearted” as me.

As Oprah has been hearkening me to declare for years, what I KNOW for sure is I’m not the first nor will I be the last that the Sapphic poet-sister seduces and then subsequently cuts-off. I would never say she “burned” me because she’s not a witch with the power to burn. She’s not a witch with power at all. She’s a sad, sorry rexcuse (it’s like an excuse but worse) for a witch: a rexcuse that was obviously damaged in some irreparable way by someone along the way and who is powerless to her own violent fragility getting the better of her and causing her to screw over innocent others with little to no tangible remorse.

As a “good-hearted”-though-Grim someone, Readerrr, who feels remorse perpetually, I can tell you, though, that we such-someones are not doormats to be walked all over. Nuh-uh. Not in your life. A “good heart” is not an invitation to debauchery. Good-heartedness and poetic justice can co-exist: and they are co-existing, right now, as I write this. Mess with a good, truth-speaking heart and justice is inevitable. Hold it in your arms and love it with all your soul, Readrrr, because truth and justice are one and the same.

It is terrible that those with “good hearts” –usually those, like me, with a good deal of naivety– are sometimes magnets for those with vacant organ chambers and are sometimes prone to being misused.

We nuns do pray for the souls of the empty, but we do not sit around waiting to take some higher road which seals our victimization. We, instead, speak the truth, because it is JUST and it WITHSTANDS no matter the fire it comes under. We speak our truth because it is the only way to divine honor and dignity. We speak the truth because nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can stand up against it. Not even death, nor the harshest and most slanderous punishments, can come up against the truth. And so: we speak it. I speak it, here and now.

The truth is that I was asked by this poet I’ve mentioned, Sister Mar, out of the blue (blue of January) to START a press with her. Not to serve as an underling. Not as an intern. To start a press with her, as her equal, as a co-owner and -operator of the press. I was the first person she asked to do this, and she, at first, expressed no interest in having anyone but the two of us be involved. Never having been asked anything like this before, especially not by someone as accomplished, talented, and brilliant at Sister Mar, I was immediately flattered. I was also excited at the prospect of the entire opportunity. But one thing was holding me back from saying yes, and that was that I could not for the life of me understand why someone as well-established as Sister Mar would ask me (“a nobody” in the world of poetry) to start a press with her. In retrospect, that disbelief and lack of confidence is exactly why someone like Sister Mar would ask me to do it. But this wisdom was not in me at the time. I now know, Readrrr, that I am not a nobody– that I am just as talented and brilliant and accomplished as Sister Mar. But then: I was under the false belief that a lack of publications reflected something about the quality of my mind and writing. Glad I got that temporary lack of confidence out of my system. What a myth!

But Sister Mar was picking up on it and it made her feel safe with me. And she adored me because, as my Readrrr knows, I am adorable, especially when I grim (it’s like grinning but a little more sinister). I adored Mar, back then, because at the time she, how shall we put this, linguistically adept. Charismatic. This is the good side of Sister Mar. It’s the other side of Sister Mar, the one that not many see and that is not visible on the surface, that makes me look on that charisma differently.

Sister Mar was every bit convinced that our publishing union would be a match made in Sapphic heaven, that we would never, ever quarrel, and that she wanted the very best for me– of this, she reassured me on countless occasions. She spoke of my talents and how I could put them to use for the press: and of my passion for Sapphic poetry and how that would infuse the mission of the press. And she was so right: my Sapphic passion essentially created the press. It, the press, was built on the foundations of my mind— the love in my mind, my ability with words and concepts, and my hard work.

I did immediately fall in love with, Readrrr, the idea of working with Sister Mar to create a press that would honor and feature the work of lesbian poets. I was not out to promote myself and “my brand,” unlike (perhaps) Sister Mar; I was out to cherish and honor The Sapphic Way. I was more determined and enthusiastic, it seemed, than Sister Mar, when we began. I was the fire igniting the loins of the press that I envisioned and that Sister Mar nurtured through me. Readrrr, I know you know the fire of which I speak! Yes, that fire! I was that fire! And the fire of my intellect was raging when Sister Mar proposed the press to me: offering it to me.

So, despite my hesitancy and against the advice of one of my trustworthy poet-friends, I said yes: I said yes to Sister Mar. But more: I said yes to the press. I became the co-founder of the press– the press that I named.

Indeed, Sister Mar asked me to come up with a name for the press.

Ah, my specialty: naming, inventing words, working with themes. I was on it (my own intellect?) like a Sapphic moth! I immediately pulled out all the stops in my consciousness to compile for her a long list of names. While I was compiling, Sister Mar suggested we name it Jess Press (after me!) but I was not comfortable with this because it was too me-specific and not true to the mission. She insisted: this will be “your press.” I insisted, in response, that it would be our press.

I came up with the name Headmistress Press. My mission came from my love and utter devotion to Sappho, my Ancient Prioress on High, the headmistress of the school of my mind, the mythical headmistress of my heart and soul, the source that keeps the fire of my intellect burning, Sappho. It was my intellect that gave birth to, that bore and built and nurtured, the foundation of the press.

As far as I’m concerned, the HP that now exists is not the HP I thought up– it is something other than what it once was, a chasm for a heart without a heart– or without my heart, because the flaming beatific heart that fueled it has been displaced and is, instead, here.

Headmistress is here, in and with me– and you, Dear Readrrr. I want Headmistress Love spread about, infectiously, forever.

This is my way of taking back what was stolen, not legally but symbolically, from me.

Headmistress is mine and I am hers. I am the star pupil in her galaxy and she is and will ever be the head teacher in mine. Readrrr, The Lavender School, which my flaming lavender spirit also bore, belongs to us.

Every ounce of Sapphic love and linguistic invention that went into the foundation of the press belongs as much to me as it does Sister Mar. The press is not something of which Sappho would approve. Sappho would never in a million years support a press that kicked out, banned, and lied about her star student. Headmistress would never have ousted me from the school I created for her; no. In fact, Headmistress Sappho lives: she lives and she rules the spheres of learning and she remains faithfully committed to Sapphic Education.

But I am getting a head. Of myself.

Shortly after the press was initiated, Sister Mar told me that she would like to bring another poet on board, who could handle the business side of things, and that the three of us would run the press together, one big happy (haggy) threesome (like the three witches in Macbeth, I would have remarked). I was a willing adherent to this, simply because I did not believe in myself enough to think to question her, and also because I trusted all of the things she said: like when she would remind me over and over that this was my press.

So Sister R, who puts the ‘argh’ in R, joined us, and I found her to be frank, sensible, and delightful– someone to create a balance when added to Sister Mar’s impulsiveness and my lack of experience. Sister Mar convinced me that we needed Sister R: to handle the financial side of things. I soon after learned that Sister Mar was in a great deal of financial trouble and could not put a dime into the press– so she was hoping that Sister R and I would be able to help. I believe that Sister Mar thought that I was wealthy when she asked me, because at the time I was a professor’s wife, and I believe she thought I could finance the project. Unfortunately, she was wrong: I was not in that kind of marriage or the inheritor of any kind of wealth, and I had not a dime to put into it either. I told her that I could not put money into the project– after we agreed to start the press together. Enter: Sister R, who apparently did have a dime (or a plan for making one).

We three mistresses began our harpy collaboration and it was quite harmonious– particularly the relationship between Sister Mar and me. Sister R was around but was less prominent in the day to day flirtatiously intellectual word play banter than was going on between Sister Mar and me. For months and months, I worked hard for my dear, precious co-founded and co-operated press, while going to grad school full time, and managed to give HPress, my true love, of my loving attention and all of my hard work. Sister Mar did her part, too, but it was I who was most actively writing and doing the day-to-day tasks for the press (except for the publication of ebooks, which Sister Mar did singlehandedly: of course, most of them were her own).

Sister Mar was overseeing me, mentoring me, guiding me, and helping me to do the work she wanted me to do for her and the press. It was a wonderful opportunity. She was also working on continuing to publish her own writing: which, as it turns out, was the central reason she wanted to create the press. I do not criticize her for this; I was supportive: there are not many venues for lesbian poets and her work is absolutely brilliant and should be read by many. But this is an important thing to know, at least for me, because it fills in some of the gaps of what became of me… the little mistress they tried, but failed, to trash.

The first thing Sister Mar wanted to do with our press was publish a book of her poems. The collection was superb so, of course, Sister R and I were enthusiastic supporters of it. I wrote a wonderful excerpt for the website, as usual — a kind of review of the book, which may or may not still exist, depending on what the Two Sisters have done with it. Sister Mar loved my reviews: that and every other thing I wrote for HP, and she referred to them as poetry, and praised them to death, and she was stirred and delighted by them. This made me ecstatic and helped to propel me into producing even better work.

Time went on, and as the months passed, Headmistress Press took up a great deal of my time– particularly my plan-making and task-completing as overseen by Sister Mar. I was, for instance, the (only) one who generously offered feedback to those who submitted manuscripts (mistress-scripts: my phrase) during our first reading phase, the result of which was the publication of G.L. Morrison’s lovely Chiaroscuro Kisses. I was churning out exquisite, Sapphically inspired phrases, like Sapphology, and I was doing what I do best: being a good student (which, if you refer to one of my Hex Lessons, means I was being a good teacher). All of this was wonderful. All of this was a gift for which I am still and always will be grateful. I learned and I had a Sapphic blast. Every part of my work done for the press was sheer joy because it was a labor of love and devotion: of my love and devotion to Headmistress, Readrrr.\

Of course, I did it all believing that Headmistress Press would be mine forever, as I was led to believe.

At the end of the summer, in 2013, Sister Mar talked of wanting me to travel to meet Sister R to attend an AWP conference, as reps for Headmistress Press, because, she said, she could not afford to attend. I was very excited and was doing my best to try to attain the funds to participate. I was prepared to create an AWP table that would stand out and capture the world of lavender and lace and loving Sapphic luxury that I had created in my head– and Sister Mar encouraged this. I recall even sending her a collage of the costume I planned to wear: made up of white bloomers and lavender gloves, and tights and hats and other fancy dated things, that I purchased off of Ebay. She was delighted and excited for me to bring this world to life, it seemed.

It was around this time that Sister Mar wrote me an email in which she told me, not at all prompted by me in any way, that when she eventually passed away, I, the youngest of the three mistresses, would be the inheritor of the press and that I would inherit both rights to the press and any financial inheritance that came from/with it. I was so touched by this and, though I felt it was not at all necessary because I was not in it believing it would ever produce money, I believed her words with all my heart (which you well know, Readrrr, has everything to do with who I am and nothing to do with Sisters Mar & aRgh).

All was well– we continued to exchange a great many emails, which were compiled on a private google groups site that Sister Mar had made for us. We all shared the password and could access the lengthy archive of our communicative history as a press. I chose not to save all of our emails on my personal gmail account because I had access to them on the google groups page and never imagined there would come a time when it would be otherwise. And so I trusted, as I always do.

Well, Readrrr, the time has come for us to visit briefly that moment of painful disconnection, the one which led to Sisters Mar & R kicking me out of the press in a most cruel and heartless fashion (yes: in Mistress Mafioso Style!).

It was all prompted because, per Mar’s request (and her assertion that HP should publish a book of poems written by me), I had brought forth a collection of poetry centering on excessive word play and the concept of HEX that I had been working on for months. Yes, I wanted, Readrrr, to present to my Headmistress (and Sister Mar) something that HP could publish, because Sister Mar said that she wanted to publish a chapbook of my work. I worked hard on it and put my heart into it, even if it wasn’t up to par, as I always put my heart into anything even remotely related to Headmistress P– and then I presented it to Sisters Mar and R, and waited excitedly and nervously for their replies.

The manuscript, which I re-named a mistress-script, was titled “Hag Bloomers and Woe Harlots.”

The dedication went like this:

“I dedicate this collection entirely to Headmistress.

Your ever-undisciplined, often disarming Headservant and Schoolmistress”

Instead of a Table of Contents, I had a Mistresses of Content Page, with four sections in it, one for each Mistress of Content: Rahab, Black Luce, Moll Cutpurse, Calamity Jane, and Aspasia.

I sent the 54 page collection of poems to Mar and R, per Mar’s request.

To my shock and discomfort, Sister Mar did not reply, but instead became strangely remote. It was not like her at all. In all times past, Sister Mar replied almost instantly to my messages (well, unless she had, as she would tell me, to climb the wooden hill to bed), and always with affection. And I did the same with regard to her messages: when she asked me for feedback, I gave her astute feedback in copious amounts. When she wanted my praise of her work, I did the same in extraordinary amounts. I never short-changed anything. And she was always loquacious and generous– until that moment.

But, though then I failed to realize it, up until that moment, we were mostly talking about her and her work. So I, novice poet that I was, went out on a limb in showing her what I had worked so hard to create: my mistress-script, my womanuscript, my baby, my love, my gift for Headmistress. Readrrr, I awaited her reply, even just a word, even a loving rejection, but Sister Mar became distant and it seemed to me that something was off. Then I recalled that a week prior, during some random conversation, she had asked me if I was implying that I wanted to pull out of doing the press. I remember at the time that she asked me that, I was dumbfounded and could not figure out what I had said that had made her think that. Well, I had not said anything to make her think that. What I now believe is that she, perhaps, had been wanting to get rid of me, for whatever reason, then– and that the situation with my poetry mistressscript became an excuse to do it.

Sister Mar did not reply and became distant, and when I asked about it, Sister R replied instead of Sister Mar. It was odd but I was at the time clueless and innocent, as usual. Sister R was very nice and very helpful– she said she thought there were some merits in the work and she let me know which poems she felt were ready for publication. She also let me know what, specifically, she felt were the mistress-script’s weaknesses. I was perfectly happy with her “it’s not ready yet” rejection and I was grateful for her helpful feedback. And I continued to wait. For Mar to say something.

Finally, after Sister R sent her email to me, we heard from Sister Mar. But Sister Mar hardly said one word about my poetry collection. She made some statement about it not being ready yet and that was it. I was quite devastated at the lack of response from her. First, it was completely out of character for her to have so little to say to me about my writing. She had gone, somehow in reading my collection of poems, from hot to cold. That felt hurtful. Secondly, it was insensitive on her part, because she knew very well how much effort and love I put into it. I didn’t expect her utter acceptance, but I also did not expect her cold reaction. It seemed to me that she treated it as if it was not worth her time.

And so I did what I always do: I was honest and I told her how her response made me feel. I earnestly expressed my hurt and told her that I felt it was unkind of her to say so little when she says so much more about the most trivial of things to me every day. I was not nasty or sarcastic; I told her how her actions made me feel. I was direct and honest, as is my style and general ethic. That was always part of the bargain from the beginning. Plus, I had no inkling that anything was wrong, so I was thinking that we would just talk through our feelings and everything would be fine. But that was not the case. Sister Mar, despite perhaps feeling deeply, was not, apparently, comfortable with dealing with feelings– or the hurt feelings of others– or the hurt feelings of me. Or perhaps she had already wanted me out, for whatever reason, and was using this as the opportunity. But, again, I was clueless to this and could not have predicted this. It’s not in my nature to think that way.

I could never have predicted what happened next. I waited for her reply, thinking it would come right away. It did not. I waited longer. Then I emailed Sister R to ask what was up. She said that Sister Mar just needed some time to cool off, and some space away from HP, and that she would get back to me soon enough. She reassured me. So I continued to wait. Then I wrote Sister Mar a message. A very friendly one, in which I apologized for not being more grateful for the feedback she felt she could give and said many loving things about her and about our friendship. I sent her a couple of clips, too, of me rehearsing some Shakespeare monologues because she had, days earlier, expressed interest in seeing me rehearse them as I prepared for a graduate program audition. And that was it.

It was only a short while after I wrote Sister Mar that I received a formal and short statement, written by Sister R, asking me to resign from the press. The reason they stated: that they did not feel I was able to contribute what Headmistress Press needed, in terms of public relations, to grow and prosper. Of course it was bogus because I had NO indication prior to this that I was doing anything but the best and highest quality work for HP. I was shocked. So shocked. Heartbroken. Powerless. Betrayed. Feelings too sharp and excruciating to express.

I tried my best to remain calm, and I wrote Sister R back, in my sincere way, because I am a sincere person, and I told her that I did not want to leave the press: that it was my desire to stay in the press. I also asked how it was possible for them to kick me out, since I was a co-owner of the press. I mentioned that I am the one who, in fact, had named the press.

She, Sister R, responded by saying that if I did not resign, they would fire me from the press. She then explained that the business contract they drew up made it so that Sister Mar had full control of the press, financially and legally, and so I had no recourse in terms of claiming that I was a co-owner of the press (I had not paid enough attention to the details of the business contract or questioned it because I just trusted in their basic decency… and in the truth). Lastly, she acknowledged that I named the press and said they would give me credit for that.

And that was it: I was kicked out of my own press. Headmistress was no longer ours; the press was theirs– not mine, and what could I do?

I immediately went to try to access our google groups page to salvage the history of Headmistress emails between us, but Sister Mar had already changed the password and locked me out of the site. She proceeded to ban me from her Facebook account, as well. All of the walls went up and I knew it was either move on or implode. I essentially had two choices: breathe hellfire into a tell-all document that would only make me look bad or let it go. I chose to try to fight the demons privately and let it go publicly. And the reason I did this was, not out of love for Sister Mar or R but, out of love for the press. I let it go for the sake of the mission: the one I invented. For the sake of my beloved Headmistress (Press). It was so hard to bear: to be kicked out of the Lavender School I invented. I felt the thorns of betrayal. I ranted vehemently. I cried endlessly. I did all of those things.

But, two years later, I am choosing to write about it. In a state of perfect calm.

I am choosing to write about it because (a) the truth matters, (b) I am able to write about it without excessive pain and without wishing harm onto Sisters Mar and R, and (c) Headmistress was, is, and always will be mine. Regardless of what happens to Mar&R’s press.

And, Readrrr, I want to share with you everything good that came from that experience. Everything good that came from it is this. Everything good that came from it is the immortality of my Headmistress, who will live on there, with the Mar&R Mistresses, and here, with you and me, and anywhere where there is the proliferation of Sapphistry.

And guess what else came to be? The genius that is you and me, Readrrr. The explosion of intellect that is our very own HEX.

Headmistress Press is Headmistress Jess is Hexmistress Jess is Hexmistress Press.

I am a Sapphic survivor, Readrrr, and so are you, when you’re with me at our Lavender School. I reinvented us in a way that by far surpasses the concept of ‘Headmistress.’

I am Hexmistress Jess, the coiner of all things HEX and the inventor of hexuality and the firecracker of hex-linguistics. No one can take that away from me, or you, Readrrr, because I am older, wiser, and still “good-hearted.”

Come not here for pretty words that will seduce; come here to be seduced by a loving brain with a lot to say. Come here for honest Sapphistry.

When you study with Hexmistress Jess, you study at the Lavender School and you study with THE ORIGINAL Headmistress. The brain behind and heart inside the operation is here. She may not be the most popular but she is the most worthy– and her heart will go to the ends of the earth, Readrrr, to bring you the truth and nothing but the truth. Follow me, Readrrr, and learn from the only teacher worth her Wellies. Love.

Dear Reader, learn from Love. Do it with the nuns. Do it with me. We are the truth.

“At last, to know it, to love it for what it is. And then: to put it away.”

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