News & Notes

Wrestling with Faith and Fear

Selections from the Archive

Our spiritual lives can shape us in ways both profound and surprising—whether we have faith or not. The essays and stories in this month’s issue invite readers to examine their own convictions about faith, fear, and evil. Because they resist easy explanations, these themes have recurred throughout The Sun’s history, revealing how personal conviction emerges not from abstract theological debates but from lived experience: a frightening airplane flight, a child’s struggle with religious indoctrination, a chess game between grandfather and grandson.

These selections demonstrate that questions of belief are rarely settled once and for all, but instead accompany us throughout our lives, evolving as we do.

Paying Attention

Poetry in Our April Issue

In Stephen Knauth’s “My Favorite Bird,” a “drab” little visitor to the author’s backyard prompts a thoughtful and empathetic contemplation of who this feathered creature is. The poem is a reminder that the world around us deserves our attention, an idea that is shared by the other poems in our April issue. Leath Tonino tells the story of a day, one moment at a time—from fires and floods to a man forgetting to plug in his slow cooker—in “Shift.” In Richard Chess’s “The Loneliest Monk Listens,” an unidentified presence counsels the speaker to breathe, remember, and listen. We invite you to do the same.

The Highs and Lows of Getting High

Selections from the Archive

In The Sun’s archives there are dozens of selections about the ways people find meaning in nature. We’ve gathered a few favorites below that we hope you’ll enjoy.

Like Flying a Kite

Mark Gozonsky on Hope, Children, and Letting Out the String

I struck up a bit of jovial correspondence in early 2020 with Mark Gozonsky, just before we published our second essay of his. Several members of our staff were planning to attend the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference in San Antonio, Texas, that year, and Gozonsky invited us to play Wiffle ball. But the pandemic had other plans for us that spring. So, when we all got sent home in mid-March, I spent many hours out in my yard relieving stress by hitting gumballs from our sweet gum tree over our house with a Wiffle ball bat I found in the bushes. In those early months of lockdown, my backyard batting average got pretty good, and Mark and I shared a few videos with each other of our respective hitting techniques. Then I was diagnosed with golfer’s elbow and spent several months in physical therapy, ending my Wiffle ball career.

Fresh Sights

Poetry in Our March Issue

For many of us March is a time when the world outside is full of surprises and every day brings new sights—bulbs emerging, trees budding, the first bare ground after months of snow. The poems in our March issue offer fresh images of their own: A dog running the bases in Laura Didyk’s “Like Love Is a Heart.” In Jeff Tigchelaar’s “Regards,” a squirrel shocked to find the author playing hooky on his deck. And, just in time for spring, an early patch of flowers in “Snowdrops,” by Andrea L. Fry.

The Great Outdoors

Selections from the Archive

In The Sun’s archives there are dozens of selections about the ways people find meaning in nature. We’ve gathered a few favorites below that we hope you’ll enjoy.

Getting Dressed, Graffiti, and Wild Animals

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Getting Dressed.” Be sure to get your entry to us by March 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. . . .

Animal Nature

Poetry in Our February Issue

Didi Jackson’s poem “Wild,” in our February issue, opens with a cat crawling up the chimney of its new house; Chera Hammons’s “Classroom Hatch” begins with a batch of chicks her husband has brought home from his fifth-grade class. From there these poems explore themes of wildness, safety, and the search for one’s place in the world—both for the animals and for the humans who interact with them. The poems make for beautifully complementary reading.

Heart and Home

A Conversation with Poet Reese Menefee

When I read Reese Menefee’s latest poem, “Hymn”—equally powerful, but very different in style and subject—I began to wonder what makes this writer tick. I had the chance to ask Reese about the origins of her poems when we talked over Zoom just before the December holidays. During our chat she also told me about finding her way home through her writing and the unlikely way she ended up in an MFA program.

Tips, Getting Dressed, and Graffiti

Upcoming Readers Write Deadlines

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