Capitalism

Become A Friend Of The Sun

Fri, 15 May 2026 14:17:36 -0400

The Sun has always belonged to its readers. It exists because people believe in quiet conversation, in close listening, in honest storytelling. It exists because readers like you decide that this endeavor is worth sustaining.

Become A Friend Of The Sun

Fri, 15 May 2026 14:17:36 -0400

A Thousand Words

elligur@gmail.com — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.

Lesson Plan

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:45 -0400

The Right and I agree on the potential of universities as a space in which students develop ideas that can transform the world. The difference is, they want to stamp it out, and I want to encourage it.

Persons of Interest

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:45 -0500

The idea that a certain kind of people are worthy of credit is entirely a social construct based around an idealized vision of society. Those same people who got credit also got all the other benefits of living in postwar America.

Eating Free

leathtonino@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500

Perhaps this isn’t the case at all Embassy Suites, but in Flagstaff, Arizona, between 5 and 7 pm, the hotel provides unlimited snacks and beer, gratis. I’ll repeat that: unlimited. Granted, I never imbibed more than three Michelobs and a cubic yard of Chex mix, but still. The possibility of unlimited is delectable.

Sunbeams

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500

Slight was the thing I bought, / Small was the debt I thought, / Poor was the loan at best— / God! but the interest!

Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Debt”

House Hunting

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500

Our sordid credit history seems to sadden more than shock her. Such nice people, she must be thinking. How do these things happen?

Glass Overfull

leathtonino@gmail.com — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500

There has been a boom, and soon there will be a bust, in global human population. And no advanced civilization will be able to reemerge because we will have used everything up. There will be no oil and gas and other supplies of that nature to maintain any civilization that might emerge from the ashes of this one.

Opportunity Knocked

dgmlewis@gmail.com — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400

A lot of the Biden administration’s pitch was “In ten years, we promise you you’re going to have a job.” Most people can’t afford to have that long-term view.

Humomism

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:00 -0400

In my writing class last Thursday, Cara said it’s a shame that the word humane has human in it, as if only humans had compassion. Then Beth said it’s a problem that human has the word man in it. So we were trying to find another word. Dan suggested “humom.” Because, at our best, we are all like mothers. So maybe that can be the name of our movement: humomism.

Flower People

jholman0099@gmail.com — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400

There was a rumor the NAACP would call for a boycott of white-owned businesses. Eugene’s mother said it wasn’t clear what the objective would be, except to piss off white people and make Black people feel in control of something. “A show of Black power,” she said, holding up a fist from the living-room sofa, but she was worried more people would be killed.

Back Cover

me@wesleyverhoeve.com — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Returning

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:00:00 -0400

The fact is, “green” is the way we buried our dead over 150 years ago in the US. It’s the way many Indigenous peoples in North America have cared for their dead. This other, more recent, method is the anomaly.

Gift Shops of the American Wild

Thu, 30 May 2024 00:01:00 -0400

The Paradise Inn sits at 5,400 feet on the south slope of Mount Rainier, the highest peak in Washington State. Up here the air is thin and crisp, the colors are saturated, and every breeze carries an aroma of pine and the trill of birdsong. Even immersed in such concentrated beauty, my heart aches. For the hundredth time today I think of Jack, a fellow writer in the graduate program I recently completed. We bonded over our love of books and our homesickness for the Midwest.

Become a Friend of The Sun

Thu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The Sun is not immune to the relentless business pressures and tectonic shifts in the media landscape over the last two decades. And while I am grateful these changes have underscored what is vital and unique about The Sun, it seems that every week I read about a worthy publication having to close its doors. We are committed to bringing our readers the best writing and photography, free from the distraction of advertising. With this choice comes the reality that the price of a subscription doesn’t come close to what it costs to print and distribute the magazine and curate the website. As we have throughout our history, we are asking you again, with great humility, to be our partner on this journey and formally become a Friend of The Sun.

Home Sick

Thu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Once we start to recognize that most of us will, at some point, have to step out of our professional role to provide care, then we have to transform how we’re running our economies. At the moment, our economies are relying on these hidden tragedies that befall women behind closed doors. All to keep the wheels of industry turning.

Down in the Valley

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Once I saw the development of new technology in class terms—how a particular kind of technology gives one group of people power over another—it started to feel more sinister.

Back Cover

pineear@gmail.com — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:10:00 -0400

Estate Sale

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:05:00 -0400

On the first day of the estate sale I strung a backdrop from a tree in the front yard and did what any photographer trying to deal with a difficult personal situation would do: I took pictures.

Yard Sales

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Hunting for bargains, letting go of possessions, emptying out a home

Tangled Avenues

dgmlewis@gmail.com — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Cities are social, so they have the same problems we do. The mistake we always make in our culture is thinking that cities are somehow separate from us and that if we conceive of the right design for them, they will magically relieve us of our problems. By investing this theoretical power in cities, we can avoid confronting the flaws in the way we have built the world: with inequality and oppression and systems that make some people’s lives miserable while other people’s lives are good.

Elegy With Adding Machine And Milk

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 04:05:00 -0400

One cold November day / after the lambs were sold / and the wheat brought in, / my grandfather settled / himself at his desk / and punched the numbers / into an electromechanical / adding machine, the gears / whirring and cachunking, / a long white ribbon pooling / on the dusty linoleum

Sunbeams

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0400

The practices we now call conservation are, to a large extent, local alleviations of biotic pain. They are necessary, but they must not be confused with cures. The art of land doctoring is being practiced with vigor, but the science of land health is yet to be born.

Aldo Leopold

This Month In Sun History

Wed, 31 May 2023 04:00:00 -0400

June 1990 was the first ad-free issue. . . . “I wanted someone reading the magazine to be able to experience another person’s words, another life, without distractions,” Sy wrote when he announced his decision. “If I were trying to do this in a room, where people could talk quietly and seriously with one another, I wouldn’t turn on the television or the radio.”

Don’t Panic

dgmlewis@gmail.com — Wed, 31 May 2023 04:00:00 -0400

I’m not talking about burning the system down. . . . I simply think that the things we can do to respond to climate change will also make the world a better place for most people.

This Month In Sun History

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0400

By the time The Sun’s number of subscribers had grown to ten thousand, its number of employees had grown, too — enough that the magazine’s charming but shabby office in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, “still fits us, but just barely, like a rumpled sweater with too many holes,” as founder and editor Sy Safransky put it. So in April 1989 The Sun bought a new property, right around the corner at 107 North Roberson Street.

At The Market

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 05:00:00 -0500

It’s Sunday at noon, and the open-air / vendors are planted in their usual spots — picklers / pressed against the outer edge while growers / forest the pathways with kale, collard greens, / and patches of lavender.

Sunbeams

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 05:00:00 -0500

It is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart.

Matthew Desmond

I Feel Sorry For Aliens

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:00:00 -0500

Lonely nights I walk to the old / elevator that used to hold Montana / grain: beams rusted, train tracks / ripped out, a patchwork of missing / roof panels framing perfect squares / of starlight