The books put out by Sun authors over the last several months include a few out-of-the-ordinary offerings, such as a collection of short stories about Alaska and a literary field guide that combines poetry with scientific notes. If you’d like a preview, you can read some poems and stories that first appeared in The Sun at the links below.
“New York Times best-selling author Frederick Joseph explores a new genre in this captivating poetry collection that seeks to find joy in moments of difficulty, whether through illuminating the beauty of being Black, highlighting the hope that can be found in childhood, or sharing intimate truths revealed on a mental-health journey.”
The Sun published one of the poems from the collection, “Making Luxury Out of Flat Soda,” on our website in June. The poem will also appear in the December issue of the magazine.
“The Bamboo Wife captures the experiences of an imperfect woman held up against the standard of ‘good’ wife and mother. Sevick is a master of metaphor and imagery, depicting, for example, a mother as a kraken. In the sea creature’s words, ‘It takes a hard-ass woman to raise her young.’ . . . The collection asks the reader to provide space in poetry for a woman trying to do her best for her own and others’ sakes, for one who has ‘made bad decisions and lived.’ ”
“I Eat My Words,” one of the poems in The Bamboo Wife (titled “Je mange mes mots” in the collection), first appeared in the October 2023 issue of The Sun.
“With his long hair and penchant for guitar, teenage Justin is the spitting image of his idol, Kurt Cobain—a resemblance that has often marked him an outcast. When the long-simmering abuse from his uncle finally boils over, Justin has no choice but to break free, in a violent act that will haunt him, and try to make it on his own as a runaway. . . . Justin’s wanderings bring him to the Bouchard family ranch, and soon Rene and Lianne take the boy in as their own. But before long, Justin’s past threatens to catch up with him, jeopardizing not only his new bond with Rene and Lianne but also the home he’s finally been able to claim.”
“A Quiet Book is a series of fifty-four images, all collages made from Susan Webster’s monotypes and drawings, with improvised handwritten and handstamped text by Stuart Kestenbaum. In her foreword to the book, poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes, ‘You can’t rush this book, and you wouldn’t want to. You want to absorb it, contain it. Somehow, it already contains you. Or the person you used to be before everything felt broken.’ ”
“In an age when many find themselves disconnected from the natural world, celebrated poet Todd Davis offers the possibilities of reconnection, of listening to the earth’s labored breathing, to the thoughts of other-than-human animals and the languages trees speak. In thirty new poems, and with ample selections from his previous seven books, Davis’s roots run deep in Rust-Belt Appalachia, attending to the harmed but healing landscape, the people whose lives are too often neglected, and the looming threat of climate collapse and extinction.”
“In this haunting debut collection, best-selling author Miles Harvey probes the mysterious relationship between human longings and the secret lives of inanimate objects. In one story, an artist discovers an uncanny ability to transform modern sculptures into priceless ancient treasures. In another, a teenager experiences visions of other people’s pasts while vandalizing their abandoned houses. . . . [These stories] explore the gravitational pull of material things: how they drift into and out of our hands, how they assume new meanings, and the ways they serve as conduits between the present and past.”
You can read “Beachcombers in Doggerland,” one of the stories from this collection, in our November 2022 issue.
“Whether considering the trajectory of his marriage, the Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting, the paradoxes of mystical Chassidic teachings, or an email from his grandfather when the poet was eighteen, November’s poems never fail to penetrate beyond the surface to the mystery underlying the full spectrum of human experience.”
“The Buttonhook,” one of the poems in the collection, was first published in The Sun’s July 2021 issue.
“With sometimes hilarious missteps, each character stumbles in and out of predicaments that are by turns tender, heartbreaking, dangerous, and even violent. Told with great empathy and often deeply ironic, wry, and sardonic humor, these stories are a counterpoint to the usual mythos, illuminating an Alaska not usually portrayed in books, on TV, or in movies.”
The collection’s title story appeared in the October 2009 issue of The Sun.
“These stories center on resilient female protagonists and offer a view into queer life in America outside of its major coastal cities. The characters in Marian Crotty’s collection are searching—for understanding, acceptance, or forgiveness. . . . While marginalization, loneliness, and bigotry hover in the distance of Near Strangers, the book’s tone is hopeful and invites readers to reflect on our shared human experience with empathy.”
“Compare and Contrast,” one of the stories in Near Strangers, was first published in our June 2024 issue.
“The book consists of descriptions and notes on habitat, range, and ecology provided by six scientists with expertise in the region’s flora and fauna. In addition, eleven artists and seventy poets have provided original artwork and poetry that illuminate the lives of the greater-than-human world. . . . Love and wonder for these ancient mountains and their ever-evolving residents flood the pages of this book, inviting the reader into a deeper way of knowing a place and the lives dependent on it.”
“Seeking a way back to joy following the deaths of her son and brother, the poet finds wonder in the furred legs of a caterpillar, in egrets, elephants, and elk, solace in the seagull’s speckled egg. . . . These poems are luminous missives tossed on the wind asking us to reenter the world we’ve forsaken, to set foot, as if for the first time, on the green earth and begin again.”
Two of the poems in this collection first appeared in The Sun: “The Bugs of Childhood” in our August 2013 issue and “Lava” in our January 2020 issue.
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