News & Notes

National Short Story Month: Staff Selections

For National Short Story Month, we hope you’ll enjoy these fiction selections from The Sun’s archive. We’ve lifted our paywall during this period of isolation, so please feel free to share them with others.

Mission Creek Festival update

The Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City will be rescheduled.

Songs from Erin McReynolds’s Essay “Train Songs”

Erin McReynolds’s essay “Train Songs” appears in our February 2020 issue, and we thought readers might appreciate hearing the songs she mentions in the piece.

A Certain Type of Magic

A Q&A with Gary Jackson

Jackson’s poem in our February 2020 issue, “After the Reading,” details a fraught exchange after a poetry reading. Over e-mail he discussed listening to (and writing, and editing, and loving) poetry, and his affection for superhero comics -- especially the bad guys.

We aren’t attending AWP 2020

We’ve made the difficult decision not to attend this year’s AWP Conference in San Antonio.

Listen to Aimee Nezhukumatathil Read Brian Doyle’s “Joyas Voladoras”

From our 2019 tribute to Brian Doyle in Portland, Oregon.

More on Grizzly Times

We asked Louisa Willcox and David Mattson to share a few additional resources about grizzly bears and to suggest ways readers might be able to help.

Sign Up for 2020 Event Announcements

We’re taking a hiatus from our “Into the Fire” retreats this year, but we hope to see you at some other events we’re planning.

Devin Murphy on Adventure, Empathy, and Learning to Open Up

Murphy says he has submitted stories to The Sun for about a decade, but this is the first we’ve published. We caught up to discuss his new story, his maritime exploits, and the most valuable lessons he learned from a mentor.

Farewell My Lovelies

Colleen Donfield’s Goodbye after Twenty-Five Years at The Sun

We’re grateful to Colleen for the years she’s spent shepherding manuscripts, encouraging writers, and shaping so many of the pieces we’ve published in The Sun.