March Recommended Reading

Take a trip through our archive and read about The Sun’s psychedelic origin story, our readers’ drug experiences from 1979, and Poe Ballantine’s metaphorical meadow that is guarded by an evil troll.

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This Month in Sun History: LSD

I would never have started The Sun were it not for LSD. . . . I don’t usually talk about that, because I think some readers might be dismayed to hear it. But I also believe it’s important to honor our teachers, regardless of the form they take, and for me LSD was an extraordinary teacher.

— Sy Safransky, Editor and Founder

On the back cover of our March issue, we explore the first time Sy Safransky, The Sun’s editor and founder, dropped acid, changing the way he understood the world. In his 2014 interview by Gillian Kendall, “Beginner’s Mind,” Sy goes in depth about God, LSD, and The Sun. You can read the entire interview here.

Readers Write on “Drug Experiences”

Each month we’re revisiting Readers Write topics that have appeared in past issues and reprinting some of the original responses. This month’s topic is “Drug Experiences,” which originally ran in our July 1979 issue. Read the original section here.

More from Poe Ballantine

This month we reprinted Poe Ballantine’s story “The Blue Devils of Blue River Avenue” as our featured archived selection. In the introduction he penned for the occasion, he mentions his essay “Blessed Meadows for Minor Poets.” You can read that essay here or browse all of Ballantine’s work from the magazine here.

If you’d like to read Caleb Powell’s 2014 interview with Ballantine, “High Plains Drifter: Poe Ballantine on Writing, Madness, and His Journey from Vagabond to Family Man,” click here.