News & Notes

Difficult Jobs

Selections from the Archive

One of my favorite pieces in our January issue is Mishele Maron’s terrific “Bad Lunch,” an essay in which she describes a challenging job preparing meals for guests on a luxury yacht. Difficult jobs—or great jobs, or bad jobs, or downright horrible jobs—are familiar to many of us, and they’ve certainly had their place in The Sun over the years. Below are some standouts from our archives.

Poems of Realization

Poetry in Our January Issue

The two poems in our January issue describe unexpected moments of clarity. In Claire McQuerry’s “I Always Wanted a Wife,” the speaker has a gradual epiphany about her true feelings about her marriage. And in Rachael Petersen’s “Tassajara,” the lessons she learns at a Zen retreat come not from the monks or meditation sessions, but from a boisterous dog.

Places of Meaning

Poetry in Our December Issue

The two poems in our December issue take us to places where the unexpected happens. In James Davis May’s “The Patron Saint of Suburban Foxes,” it’s to a quiet neighborhood where early risers catch a glimpse of a rare visitor. Gary Jackson’s “Pinkie Masters” takes us barhopping in Savannah with the author’s wife and mother-in-law, who pulls a prank for the ages. Both are gorgeous poems that offer not just rich settings, but a more expansive sense of the meaning that hides all around us.

Starting Over

Selections from the Archive

This month’s selections from The Sun’s archive explore what it means to be forced to leave home and start over someplace else. We begin with a short story from Ron Currie in which a far-from-all-powerful God appears in Sudan in the guise of a woman fleeing civil war.

From there we visit a New York City harbor in the late 1940s, where a young photographer named Clemens Kalischer captured images of displaced Europeans arriving in the US in the aftermath of World War II.

In Diane Lefer’s interview “Land of the Free?” Tram Nguyen, whose family was among those who escaped Vietnam in fishing boats in the 1970s, discusses hostile attitudes toward immigrants following 9/11.

Poet Mark Smith-Soto, who came to the US as a child, writes about learning to speak like an American in “Accent.”

And finally our readers share stories of seeking, finding, and offering refuge.

We hope these works inspire compassion and understanding for refugees everywhere.

Four Captivating Poems

Poetry in Our November Issue

The trio of poems by Sybil Smith in our November issue are full of surprising elements. They take place against the backdrop of an Alaskan salmon run, when the fish famously swim upstream to spawn. One poem includes a fertility spell, and one ends with a lullaby that reads like a prayer for the future. Sybil’s writing mixes the hard facts of biology with lyricism and a sense that, maybe, our pleas in the dark don’t go unheard. John Hodgen’s “The Lonesomest Sound in the World” casts its own spell as it artfully tells the story of a grim act of childhood cruelty. With his precise, unsettlingly beautiful writing, the author has captured a truth you can’t look away from, in a poem you won’t forget anytime soon.

Los Vecinos

Read a Poem from An Upcoming Issue

Once in a while we get a submission that’s a perfect fit for an issue, but the deadline to include it has already passed. That’s what happened with Alison Luterman’s poem “Los Vecinos,” which we accepted two weeks after the November issue went to the printer. The poem, about an immigrant neighbor who brings food and healing gifts to the author’s door, is a heartfelt companion to the November interview  between Daniel McDermon and John Washington about open borders and Laurie Smith’s photo essay  about migrants seeking entry to the US from Mexico. “Los Vecinos” translates the enormous issue of immigration into a personal story about generosity, community, and resilience. We’re publishing it on the website so you can read it in conversation with the interview and photo essay, which you’ll find both online and in print. 

Looking at the Impossible

Selections from the Archive

A few months ago I sat down with Jeffrey J. Kripal, the chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University, to discuss a wide range of “impossible” phenomena—experiences that don’t gel with a strict materialist view of the universe. That conversation appears in our October issue, alongside an essay by Sun founder and editor emeritus, Sy Safransky, where he relays what can only be described as a spiritual experience with his deceased cat, Cirrus.

It’s one of the many things I love about the magazine: its longstanding willingness to invite readers down some pretty unusual avenues, and to treat those explorations with the seriousness they deserve.

Rifling Through the Impossible

On the Road with Associate Editor Derek Askey

Earlier this year I traveled to Houston, Texas, to interview Jeffrey J. Kripal for the October issue of The Sun. While I was there, he granted me access to what are known as the Archives of the Impossible, housed in a nearby building on the Rice University campus. Accompanied by a Sun contributor, I was permitted to explore some of the Archives' materials. What I didn’t know at the time, however, was that, not long after stopping by, my life would change irrevocably.

The Essentials: Poetry in Our October Issue

Poetry in Our October Issue

“I know nothing much,” Leath Tonino says in his poem “Skill Set.” While he notes a lack of practical abilities, like fixing a car or using a chainsaw, it turns out he does have some less-utilitarian but maybe more-important skills: He notices beauty everywhere and can carry a tune. Rebecca Baggett wishes for just such a Tonino-esque gift in one of her two poems in our October issue; she wants to listen to the rain without being distracted by her own thoughts. This month’s poetry offers meditations on essential things, asking us to consider what we value about ourselves and our experience of the world.

The Practice of Peace

Selections from the Archive

Our July issue reminds us how violent conflicts can become seemingly intractable. Yet throughout The Sun’s history we’ve given voice to those who choose a different path—writers, readers, and interviewees who interrupt cycles of violence through acts of courage, vulnerability, and radical love. I’ve selected a few that journey from the foundations of nonviolence to its practice in daily life.