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David Mahaffey

David Mahaffey

David Mahaffey, whose father is a volunteer firefighter, wrote a short story in graduate school about their family home burning down. David is an associate editor at The Sun.

Three Vivid, Varied Perspectives

Poetry in Our September Issue

The poems in our September issue invite me to share three vivid, varied perspectives. Luke Patterson’s prose poem “Extrication Day” offers a glimpse into the life of an EMT who sometimes needs his own rescue. In Luisa Muradyan’s “I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated,” the author deftly blends reflections on Jesus with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reminding us that humor and sorrow are both human responses to the unimaginable. And for a journey into the surreal, Ernest Ògúnyẹmí’s “The Dream” transports us through a mesmerizing landscape of the mind, where lush language and dreamlike imagery intertwine in a symphony of stars and music.

The 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.

Two 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.

The Next Fifty Years

Editor Rob Bowers on the Future of The Sun

Like many who find their way to The Sun, our new editor, Rob Bowers, took a roundabout route, from finance to farming to publishing. Even his journey since he joined the staff seems unlikely: the business manager, the publisher, and now the successor to founding editor Sy Safransky. Rob has recounted some of his story in the magazine, but I thought readers might appreciate another opportunity to learn more about him, so I invited him to discuss his new role. We took a break from the crush of late-December deadlines to talk about folk songs, small farms, and the fundamental essence of The Sun.

The Sun Interview

Burning Questions

Meg Krawchuk On Our Changing Relationship With Fire

A fire manager making a decision may look like they’re in a position of power, but often they really have only one choice: to suppress the fire. If they don’t, they are opening themselves up to a Russian roulette of consequences depending on how the wind blows, quite literally.

November 2023
The Sun Interview

Local Haunts

Colin Dickey On Place And Meaning In Ghost Stories

I think every place is haunted to one degree or another. And there will always be people who have a feeling when they visit a place, or believers who will say that they’ve seen something.

October 2023

The Other Side of the Portal

Speculative Fiction in The Sun

As part of our ongoing celebration of The Sun’s fiftieth year in print, we featured Debbie Urbanski’s 2016 short story “The Portal” as our September issue’s Dog-Eared Page. In my introduction to the story I noted that several other writers of science fiction and fantasy — too many to list in print — have also found their way into the magazine. But here in the more generous confines of our website I can share some of my other favorites from our archives.

The Sun Interview

Out There

Seth Shostak On The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence

I doubt any aliens we might encounter are going to be biological. I think they’re all going to be machines.

January 2023
Announcements

God In The Machine

Introducing The Sun’s Digital Edition

“We have taken the same care in building the online edition that we do in crafting each issue, and if we are unfashionably late to the digital party, I don’t think Sy minds very much.”

April 2013
What Do You Think?

Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We’d love to hear about it.

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