Issue 568 | The Sun Magazine

April 2023

Readers Write

Dating Apps

Meeting a spouse, rediscovering an ex, matching with yourself

By Our Readers
The Dog-Eared Page

On Seeing A Sex Surrogate

Pounding the keys with my mouth stick, I wrote in my journal as quickly as I could about my experience, then switched off the computer and tried to nap. But I couldn’t. I was too happy. For the first time, I felt glad to be a man.

By Mark O’Brien
Quotations

Sunbeams

Not everybody feels religion in the same way. Some it’s in their mouth, but some it’s like a hope in their blood, their bones.

Tillie Olsen, “O Yes”

The Sun Interview

Losing Our Religion

Molly Worthen On The Modern Search For Meaning

It seems every year a new survey comes out in which the category of “no religious affiliation” grows larger and larger. A small portion of those people embrace the label atheist or agnostic, but the vast majority don’t, and some would say the phrase “spiritual but not religious” applies to them.

By Staci Kleinmaier
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

How To Be A Woman

I learned a woman could wield the power to turn heads. She could capture a room’s attention and make everyone laugh. Everything else I knew of women’s lives told me not to trust this kind of power, but I wanted it nonetheless.

By Patricia Fancher
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Updating My Bio

The Mystical: Leath Tonino is the author of a fragmented novella and 30 billion profound thoughts that blew away on the wind. His work has appeared in snowy fields and dusty canyons, and he has pieces forthcoming on the surface of moonlit lakes. His memoir is currently being translated into stardust and deep-violet silence.

By Leath Tonino
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Dissent

The protesters were quite something to watch. On Zoom calls I would describe them to a friend in Brooklyn, who kept calling this the Summer of Discontent. What is happening to us does not have a name yet, I wanted to say. But it did not matter. The protesters were beautiful and bold, like revolutionaries.

By Kéchi Nne Nomu
Fiction

Dating Profile

What’s on my mind lately: How to survive the winter alone with a roaming catamount who needs a snack. I asked advice from the guy who plows our driveway. “What should I do if I see it?” He stuck his head out of the truck window: “Don’t act like food.”

By Camille Guthrie
Photography

A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.

Photograph By Rita Bernstein
Poetry

The Skull

When he held it out, I ran / my fingers over the shredded / cartilage of the nasal cavity / and the sutures that fused together / the cranium, the tip of my finger / gone for a second when I poked it / inside a shadowy orbit

By John Bargowski
Poetry

Ode To The Man Who Gave Me A Dinosaur Notepad On Our Hinge Date

Because he didn’t think girls don’t like dinosaurs. Because he didn’t assume / he was entitled to have sex with me because he bought me a taco. / Because our date was an hour. Because what he gave me was light / and easy to carry.

By Emily Sernaker