News & Notes

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.

Listen to Poems from Our February Issue

Listen to the recordings of the three poems featured in our February issue. Each poem touches on a “what if”: an uncertain or changeable moment when a different future is possible.

Big Feelings

An Interview with Mishele Maron

Mishele Maron has been employed as a professional chef and worked aboard luxury yachts that sailed the world. In her essay in this month’s issue, “Anger Management,” she writes about some of those experiences and also about working at a mental-health clinic, where she participated in group-counseling sessions for men with anger issues. When we spoke over video chat, Mishele impressed me with her nuanced understanding of emotions and her sharp analysis of the various class, gender, and other factors at work in our professional and personal relationships. We talked about her seafaring years, her older daughter’s favorite reality TV show, and why she wasn’t satisfied to vent her rage on a punching bag.

Nature and Nurture

Selections from the Archive

Our January 2024 issue looks at how our environments and circumstances shape us and how we are shaping our environment. Collectively the voices in the issue grapple with not only the idea of nature versus nurture, but also with how we can nurture nature. These are questions that Sun contributors have contemplated for years, and I’ve pulled a few of my favorites from our archive.

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

Fuel, Misunderstandings, and the Basement

There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Fuel”! Be sure to get your entry to us by February 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. . . .