News & Notes

Listen to Poems from Our April Issue

Listen to the authors read the three poems featured in our April issue. These poems all touch on themes of what we give away or leave behind.

Photo Essays That Tell a Story

Selections from the Archive

We’re always happy when a photo pairs nicely with a piece of writing, and particularly when a whole photo essay can complement other work in the magazine. We’ve printed quite a few over the years. Keep reading for a selection of photo essays from our archive to scroll through after you’ve read some of the pieces in our April issue.

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

The Basement, Timing, and Luxuries

There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “The Basement”! Be sure to get your entry to us by April 1, 2024—we’ve suggested a few potential prompts if you still need to get your creative juices flowing. And it’s never too early to start your first draft for an upcoming topic. . . .

The Love of the Game

Selections from the Archive

Mac Crane’s essay in our March issue, “Loving a Sport That Doesn’t Always Love Me Back,” explores the author’s complex relationship with athletics and identity. Keep reading for selections from our archive that capture the beauty, transformation, and intensity sports bring to our lives.

Say the Hardest Thing

Cameron Dezen Hammon on Spirituality and Sexuality

Cameron Dezen Hammon’s essay “Kissing Strangers in the Street” is her first publication in The Sun and is about how she experimented with witchcraft and the sexual practice of BDSM to manifest change in her life. I spoke with Cameron about her essay by video call. It was one of several conservations we had as her manuscript went through the editing stages. From our first interaction Cameron was open, inviting, and easy to talk to, which I especially appreciated since I was asking about her sex life and her religious beliefs.

Listen to Poems from Our March Issue

Listen to the authors read the two transporting poems featured in our March issue. These vivid poems describe escapes of two very different kinds.

A Web-Exclusive Poem from Cameron Barnett’s New Collection

Murmur: “Grandpa’s Gavel”

We are celebrating the release of Cameron Barnett’s second book of poetry, Murmur, out today from Autumn House Press, with an exclusive online publication of “Grandpa’s Gavel.” Cameron’s new poetry collection considers the question of how we become who we are.

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

Misunderstandings, the Basement, and Timing

There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Misunderstandings”! Be sure to get your entry to us by March 1, 2024—we’ve suggested a few potential prompts if you still need to get your creative juices flowing. And it’s never too early to start your first draft for an upcoming topic. . . .

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.

The Challenges—and Joys—of Pregnancy

Selections from the Archive

Lucy Tan’s “Falling Action in Hoboken,” from our February issue, is the story of a young woman who begins dating a man she meets at a bar, then unexpectedly finds herself pregnant. The narrator describes her hesitations about carrying the pregnancy to term: “I think about the word womb a lot, about how it sounds like a cross between wound and tomb. I don’t want to be a mother. I am not qualified to be a mother.” This month’s archive selections explore the challenges—and joys—women may face when discovering they’re pregnant.