News & Notes

New-Release Roundup

October 2025

Recent book releases from Sun authors are as eclectic as the magazine itself. They include a book of essays about how we care for one another, a memoir about being released from prison, a collection of stories that combine the supernatural and the mundane, and a coffee-table book about klezmer musicians. Pick one up today and support these wonderful writers and artists.

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.

Practicing, Milk, and Distractions

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Practicing.” Be sure to get your entry to us by November 1—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.

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 Cat Who Woke Me Up

Longreads Roundup Top 5 Selection

We’re delighted that this piece was chosen as a top 5 selection for the Longreads Roundup.

Bars, Practicing and Milk

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Bars.” Be sure to get your entry to us by October 1—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 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.

Here and Gone

Poetry in Our July Issue

“When he dies, my father turns into a small stone on the bed,” begins Michael Torres’s beautiful poem “Levi Strauss & Co.” All three poems in our July issue deal with figures who, like Torres’s father, have departed in some way, but whose presence remains. Yehoshua November’s “Exile for the Sake of Redemption” considers the movements of a God who sometimes feels out of reach. In “Parting Advice,” James Davis May recalls a friend’s enigmatic words, which have stayed with him since the friend’s passing.

Masculinity and Gender in Transformation

Selections from the Archive

Richard Reeves opens his interview in this month’s issue with a stark, surprising observation: boys and men have been falling behind girls and women for about fifty years. As his conversation with Daniel McDermon unfolds, it becomes evident that the challenges facing men today resist simple solutions like revisiting the rigid gender roles of the past or reinforcing traditional masculine scripts. What’s needed, Reeves suggests, is a shift from deconstructing masculinity to reconstructing it—developing positive narratives and roles for boys and men that align with gender equality and acknowledge masculinity’s continued significance.

The interview brought to mind several pieces from The Sun’s archives that invite an expansive exploration of gender. The selections below examine the intricate ways gender shapes our lives. An interview with Jaclyn Siegel by Sam Risak—who also contributed an essay to this month’s issue—further explores masculinity through the lens of male body image. An essay by a nonbinary athlete navigating basketball courts and a short story about a girl discovering her identity through playground games reveal gender as both a bridge and a barrier, a source of strength and of vulnerability. A poem by John Struloeff traces the transmission of violence between generations of men and boys. Our readers share their own experiences of finding belonging—or choosing difference—across boundaries of race, class, sexuality, and ability.

Together these pieces illuminate distinct facets of gender’s role in society, from childhood through adulthood, offering nuanced perspectives on what masculinity means and might become.