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A Web-Exclusive Poem from Cameron Barnett’s New Collection
Murmur: “Grandpa’s Gavel”
We are celebrating the release of Cameron Barnett’s second book of poetry, Murmur, out today from Autumn House Press, with an exclusive online publication of “Grandpa’s Gavel.” Cameron’s new poetry collection considers the question of how we become who we are.
By Cameron Barnett • February 27, 2024Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines
Misunderstandings, the Basement, and Timing
There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Misunderstandings”! Be sure to get your entry to us by March 1, 2024—we’ve suggested a few potential prompts if you still need to get your creative juices flowing. And it’s never too early to start your first draft for an upcoming topic. . . .
February 23, 2024The Beast in Your Head
Read an Essay from an Upcoming Issue
I confess that I had never listened to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” all the way through until I read “The Beast in Your Head,” but that didn’t keep me from being drawn into Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s reflection on how the song informed her experience as a teenager with undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. We’ve scheduled this essay for an upcoming issue of the magazine, but we’re sharing it early online in celebration of Cynthia’s new memoir in prose poems, Exploding Head, published this month by Persea Books. —David Mahaffey, Associate Editor
By Cynthia Marie Hoffman • February 22, 2024The Challenges—and Joys—of Pregnancy
Selections from the Archive
Lucy Tan’s “Falling Action in Hoboken,” from our February issue, is the story of a young woman who begins dating a man she meets at a bar, then unexpectedly finds herself pregnant. The narrator describes her hesitations about carrying the pregnancy to term: “I think about the word womb a lot, about how it sounds like a cross between wound and tomb. I don’t want to be a mother. I am not qualified to be a mother.” This month’s archive selections explore the challenges—and joys—women may face when discovering they’re pregnant.
By Derek Askey, Associate Editor • February 20, 2024Listen to Poems from Our February Issue
Listen to the recordings of the three poems featured in our February issue. Each poem touches on a “what if”: an uncertain or changeable moment when a different future is possible.
By Nancy Holochwost, Associate Editor • February 16, 2024Big Feelings
An Interview with Mishele Maron
Mishele Maron has been employed as a professional chef and worked aboard luxury yachts that sailed the world. In her essay in this month’s issue, “Anger Management,” she writes about some of those experiences and also about working at a mental-health clinic, where she participated in group-counseling sessions for men with anger issues. When we spoke over video chat, Mishele impressed me with her nuanced understanding of emotions and her sharp analysis of the various class, gender, and other factors at work in our professional and personal relationships. We talked about her seafaring years, her older daughter’s favorite reality TV show, and why she wasn’t satisfied to vent her rage on a punching bag.
By Andrew Snee, Senior Editor • February 12, 2024Nature and Nurture
Selections from the Archive
Our January 2024 issue looks at how our environments and circumstances shape us and how we are shaping our environment. Collectively the voices in the issue grapple with not only the idea of nature versus nurture, but also with how we can nurture nature. These are questions that Sun contributors have contemplated for years, and I’ve pulled a few of my favorites from our archive.
By Staci Kleinmaier, Assistant Editor • January 30, 2024Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines
Fuel, Misunderstandings, and the Basement
There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Fuel”! Be sure to get your entry to us by February 1, 2024—we’ve suggested a few potential prompts if you still need to get your creative juices flowing. And it’s never too early to start your first draft for an upcoming topic. . . .
January 26, 2024Two Possible Climate Futures
Excerpts from New Novels
Our January 2024 issue explores causes and effects—between species, life choices, and how we care for others—subjects that were also on the minds of two Sun contributors as they wrote their new debut novels. Nick Fuller Googins and Debbie Urbanski imagined very different futures for humanity in the wake of unchecked climate change. We are pleased to share online excerpts from both books.
By David Mahaffey, Associate Editor • January 24, 2024The Great Transition
An Excerpt from Nick Fuller Googins’s First Novel
Ever since her school project Emi has been asking why we did not act sooner. Her mother has an easier answer. She grew up protesting with her family. Blocking oil trains. As for me, what can I say? My parents were loving people. Resourceful. Intelligent. They knew what was happening. My mother pointed out how the goldenthread blossomed months before the pollinators arrived. And the loons that used to winter on our shores—how long since we’d heard their ghostly calls?
By Nick Fuller Googins • January 24, 2024Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? Send A Letter