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For ten years Anders Carlson-Wee got almost everything he needed from the trash: food, clothes, furniture, lamps. He wrote about his experiences in his essay “The Salmonella Special,” which appears in our November issue, and in his new poetry collection, Disease of Kings, released this October by W.W. Norton. When we spoke over Zoom, I asked him to tell me more about this lifestyle. We talked about capitalism, loneliness, freedom, and one of the greatest hauls of his dumpster-diving career.
By Nancy Holochwost• November 9, 2023Forty-four years ago this month, we offered a special holiday rate on gift subscriptions. That was the first time, and it’s a tradition we’ve continued every year since. The announcement of that original offer in 1979 described The Sun as “the ideal gift for friends who’d share your enthusiasm for a totally independent journal, a forum for those who lead lives of intensity and impact” — a description that, happily, has remained true.
November 1, 2023In this month’s interview [“Local Haunts,” interview by David Mahaffey], historian Colin Dickey examines why certain locations become associated with the supernatural. We’ve highlighted archive selections that explore the ghostly — and the ghastly — through shades of a graveyard, the horrors of Jaws and embarrassing parents, and email spam from the other side.
October 31, 2023There’s still time to submit to Readers Write on “Taste”! 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. . . .
October 26, 2023We are celebrating the release of Erin Hoover’s second book of poetry, No Spare People, out today from Black Lawrence Press, with an exclusive online publication of the book’s concluding poem, “What If Pain No Longer Ordered the Narrative.” Hoover’s poetry collection looks at parenting from the lens of an unpartnered, queer mother in the U.S. South and questions dominate narratives of gender, class, and race.
By Erin Hoover• October 20, 2023By her own admission, Leona Sevick is a latecomer to poetry. She was trained as an American literature scholar and never took a creative-writing class. We published her poem “I Eat My Words” in our October 2023 issue. Leona and I met on Zoom, and we spoke about bamboo wives, pregnancy pains, and poetic meter. At the end of our conversation she read her poem out loud, and even though I knew how it ended, I still got chills.
By Staci Kleinmaier• October 18, 2023This month Sun readers wrote to tell us about their experiences with “Television,” but that’s not the first time we’ve explored the little — or perhaps big — black box that resides in (most) everyone’s living room. In fact we’ve printed Readers Writes on “Television” and “Watching TV” in 1979 and 1996, respectively, and have published poems, essays, interviews, and photo essays on the subject. Here are just a few memorable examples of when The Sun and its contributors crossed paths with the small screen.
October 12, 2023I caught up with Jen Silverman late this summer, after we finished the edits on “Scale,” their new short story in our October issue. Jen was a few months into returning to New York City from Japan, where they worked as a producer and writer on the Max series Tokyo Vice. Jen had just switched gears back to theater, working on the book for a new musical with the composer Dave Malloy, workshopping an upcoming new play called Spain about propaganda, and wondering how long the writers’ strike in Hollywood (which has since ended) would keep a number of other projects on hold.
By Finn Cohen• October 10, 2023In October 1974 The Sun, still in its infancy and called The Chapel Hill Sun, reached a milestone. Its sixth issue featured a visual element that has defined its look for nearly fifty years: a black-and-white photograph.
October 1, 2023Mark Leviton’s September interview with Dacher Keltner explores awe, including its physical and psychological benefits. This month’s archive selections expound on the different ways we experience it — whether profound, unexpected, or painful.
September 28, 2023Give in to the temptation. We love getting mail.
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