Identity https://www.thesunmagazine.org/rss en-us Milk Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28993 Sun, 31 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-milk 606-30-wild-preview.jpg 606 - Wild - Milk Nicknames Get to know Boxcar Betty, Stick Dick, Lali, and the Cajun Asian

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28923 Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/602-nicknames 602-30-bookbinder-preview.jpg 602 - Bookbinder - Nicknames Wild Animals Swimming with whale sharks, hearing a mountain lion, refusing to eat a snake

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28871 Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/599-wild-animals 599-33-werdinger-preview.jpg 599-Werdinger-Wild Animals Getting Dressed Sleeping in uniform, layering against the cold, wearing your spouse’s jeans

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28834 Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/readers-write-getting-dressed-friendship-travel-divorce-feminism-597 597-30-laden-preview.jpg 597 - Laden - Getting Dressed Manicure What remains of their visit is memory, residue, / trickles of sand from our trip to the beach. / I confess, I like my bedazzled talons . . .

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28819 Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/manicure-alison-luterman-poem-aging-family-relationships-596 There, Here, Jazz The first time I walked into our new old house, it was the light / that surprised me—how much of it fell through the four windows / facing south and landed wide across the floorboards . . .

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28816 Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/there-here-jazz-christine-poreba-596 Tips Waiting tables at a diner, playing in a wedding band, giving massages at the Phallus Palace

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28814 Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/readers-write-tips-work-money-relationships-596 596-30-verhoeve-preview.jpg 596 - Verhoeve - Readers Write Tips The Seafood Stand Once, my father drove from New Jersey to California by siphoning gas from strangers’ cars, then sent his van off the Pacific Coast Highway by laying a brick on the accelerator. His mother almost died when she heard.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28813 Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/seafood-stand-matt-barrett-fiction-family-identity-596 596-28-abeles-preview.jpg 596 - Abeles - Barrett Rough Road Beat from cycling around town all morning collecting rejections, I scarfed down a fast-food burger that settled into my gut like wet plaster. I just wanted to sit in the air-conditioning and pretend things were going to be OK, but a kid in his polyester uniform started slinging ammonia water from a mop bucket, and the smell made my sinuses hurt.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28812 Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/rough-road-jd-mathes-addiction-recovery-prison-596 596-24-wilder-preview.jpg 596 - Wilder - Mathes Complexion A prominent birthmark, an elaborate skin-care regimen, a secret ancestry

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28799 Mon, 30 Jun 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/595-complexion 595-30-lenz-preview.jpg 595-lenz-Complexion.jpg A Thousand Words djpearlman1@gmail.com A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28777 Fri, 30 May 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/594-a-thousand-words 594-23-pearlman-preview.jpg 594-pearlman-a thousand words Look at Me Longer scotto.writing@gmail.com I turned a corner and saw a tall, handsome man staring right at me. He wore a green sweatshirt, black basketball shorts, and white Nikes. His face was expressive, wise, large-featured. Five-o’clock shadow. A shock of salt-and-pepper hair.

He was me. I was looking into a mirror.

I usually thought of myself as a slob: Dry, blotchy skin. Big belly. Thinning hair. But my reflection was actually pretty nice-looking. I only became a “slob” when I realized who I was looking at, when I understood the mess behind the face.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28776 Fri, 30 May 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/594-look-at-me-longer 594-20-osterhaus-preview.jpg 594-osterhaus-scotto All Night A 24-hour diner, a hospital late shift, a conversation you don’t want to end

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28759 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/593-all-night 593-30-verhoeve-preview.jpg 593-verhoeve-all night.jpg T-Shirts Poorly—and purposefully—placed slogans, baby-goat encounters, and uncanny AOL connections


]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28741 Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/592-t-shirts 592-30-raeburn-preview.jpg 592-Raeburn-T-Shirts Nectar It was an old tradition he had once told her about: When there was a death in the household, the beekeeper would go out to tell the bees about it. The thought was that, if the bees were not told, they would abscond. They were members of the family. Their feelings would be hurt if they were overlooked.

So he was doing it. Telling them. Romantic fool.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28714 Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/591-nectar 591-14-bronsan-preview.jpg 591-Brosnan-Wood Crossroads The South is made to carry the nation’s slop jar. That’s deliberate, because then the United States doesn’t have to actually contend with all of its violence. We just put the blame on that region where bad stuff happens and where those backward people are. I don’t think it’s incidental, either, that it is the Blackest region culturally (and demographically) speaking. So it is at once seen as the most racist and the Blackest.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28612 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:14 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-crossroads 589-4-amberg-preview.jpg 589 - Amberg - Martin Sunbeams

I’m not sure which matters more—where the seed comes from, or where it takes root and grows.

Zetta Elliott, A Wish After Midnight

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28684 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-sunbeams 589-49-kral-preview.jpg 2 R UMAX PowerLook 2100XL V1.3 [3] 589 - Kral - Sunbeams Hymn reese.menefee@gmail.com We exist on the cusp of light and ruin. / Some nights I pray for time // to fold into itself, then spit us out / small and smooth like tumbled rocks, // alloys of past and present.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28683 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-hymn 589-46-meza-preview.jpg 589 - Meza - Menefee Without the Gate Usually he has a morning episode, then he’s placid most of the day, chatty, gently losing his mind in starts and stops. But after dinner the maximum horror falls on him. He stiffens, his face wracked. He’s at the threshold; he can almost remember the “thing.”

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28681 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-without-the-gate 589-40-forrester-preview.jpg 589 - Forrester - McKay Walking Out A peach-pickers’ strike, a crisis of faith, a paralyzing accident

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28678 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-walking-out 589-29-lirakis-preview.jpg 589 - Lirakis - Walking Out Art During Wartime In opposition to Vladimir Putin’s invasion, Ukrainian performing artists are reasserting their national identity. When I photographed the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, they were rehearsing the works of Stankovych and Barvinsky, Ukrainian composers who’d been banned during the Soviet era. This declaration of Ukrainian culture was considered so important that fighting-aged male symphony members were permitted to leave the country when the symphony took up residency in Germany.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28676 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-art-during-wartime 589-17-scott-preview.jpg 589 - Scott - Scott - 01 Lost and Found I want to be a good man, a good son, but that’s hard to pull off when it’s 100 degrees and feels like 115 because of the 90 percent humidity—current conditions in southeast Georgia. I’ve come home to visit my eighty-two-year-old mother and assuage some of my guilt for not being here fifty weeks out of the year.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28675 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/589-lost-and-found 589-14-kral-preview.jpg 589 - Kral - Cashion Sunbeams

It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organized dust—ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable.

Mary Wollstonecraft

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28650 Sat, 30 Nov 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/588-sunbeams 588-49-seffal-preview.jpg 588 - Seffal - Sunbeams Making Luxury Out of Flat Soda frederickt.joseph@gmail.com I learned to breathe in my grandmother’s kitchen / despite life sitting on my chest. / Scent of cast-iron skillet seasoned by sunrises / and ancestors’ touch. Gospels of sizzling grease / and bubbling greens my uncle called hallelujah and amen.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28646 Sat, 30 Nov 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/588-making-luxury-out-of-flat-soda 588-40-galinsky-preview.jpg 588 - Galinsky - Joseph The Wind Phone The prairie grass has always drawn things into its orbit. I’ve seen rabbits hide among the bluestem, and the occasional red fox, and after every storm there are objects that blow or float past and entangle themselves in the switchgrass and fescue. . . . Tonight, a windy September evening, a shiny new object has appeared in my yard, like a loose mylar balloon blown by the wind.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28637 Sat, 30 Nov 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/588-the-wind-phone 588-20-grant-preview.jpg 588 - Grant - Neville Greenie heatherellesellers@gmail.com Sometimes I wonder if that moment when I came into the house after school, during a time when I was mostly friendless, dressed in matronly, dated clothes from the Cancer Society thrift shop, barred by my mother from concerts, movies, and parties, and I sat down at the table and was grabbed hard by my grandmother’s hand, which seemed to hold a charge of energy—sometimes I wonder if that moment, that physical connection, that pinch, was how I survived.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28635 Sat, 30 Nov 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/588-greenie 588-13-easley-preview.jpg 588 - Easley - Sellers Old Souls Askey: This is perhaps an ontological question, but do you think James Huston became James Leininger, or is there some other entity—some consciousness, some soul—that was once James Huston and is now James Leininger?

Tucker: The latter much more than the former, I think. We can only speculate, but to my mind there may well be this larger self that has different lifetimes. It’s a core that continues, though the people it inhabits are different. I use the analogy of actors in movies. When you see Jimmy Stewart in a movie, it’s undeniably Jimmy Stewart, and yet he can play very different characters.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28634 Sat, 30 Nov 2024 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/588-old-souls 588-4-feinstein-preview.jpg 588 - Feinstein - Askey Love and Other Pandemics jhnelson427@gmail.com The thing about the apocalypse is that nobody said it would be so beautiful. Spring is letting down her hair. The air is warm, sweet, and clear. Moss drapes over a storm drain, parting for the rush of early-morning runoff. A heavy quiet has descended since we took to our homes, save for the shrieking hawks circling the shuttered strip-mall parking lot next door to my mother’s house outside of Philadelphia.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28605 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-love-and-other-pandemics 587-41-kaye-preview.jpg 587 - Kaye - Nelson Butter I went on absorbing Beth’s hostile digs until a new patient stole her attention from me. Louise had a round face, dark curly hair, and a generous, pear-shaped body. Her weight seemed concentrated in her thighs. When she arrived at lunch for the first time, her figure filling the doorframe, Beth’s eyes brightened as if she were an African lion coming upon a gazelle. I could practically feel my tormentor’s focus lift off me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28601 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-butter 587-24-bruce-preview.jpg 587 - Bruce - Maron Flower People jholman0099@gmail.com 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.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28598 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-flower-people 587-16-whiteman-preview.jpg 587 - Whiteman - Holman