
November 2022
Letter from the Editor
This issue is our second one back from hiatus. We doubled submissions in all categories. This was great, but it also made the choices as to which pieces to publish even harder. You, dear submitters, don’t make it easy for us! Your writing inspires and challenges us to think deeper and broader, to push past good into the realm of excellence. We’ve always asked you to move us with your writing, to make us feel something beyond a nod to “good writing.” The whole concept of being bold and vulnerable is that the writing must be two-fold – both hard-edged and soft-centered, sharp and still able to be held in the hands. These 24 poems, 3 short fiction pieces, and 3 creative nonfiction pieces do just that. They push at us and punch, and then they find the cradle which makes all good writing tinder for the heart.
We hope you enjoy Issue Nine. Celebrate it with us on social media and with your fellow writers. And catch us in early 2023 for Issue Ten. The reading period opens on January 1, 2023.
Until then, blessings,
Sandy
Poetry:
Twenty-two – by Devon Borkowski
Aeolian Geomorphology – by Rohan Buettel
Lopez Park Raven – by John Davis Jr.
Concluded: Six Weeks Bed-ridden – by Mary Christine Delea
Ode to the College Poem Where I Compared the Tillamook Burn to My Love – by Merridawn Duckler
Snow-covered Road Winding Through Trees – by Keith Erickson
The Weeping Chamber – by David Galloway
To a Spider in its Web – by D. Walsh Gilbert
The Little Girl Who Danced in the Graveyard – by Ken Hines
Mission Station – by William LaPage
Trying to Read the Signs – by Jeff Newberry
As a Doctor My First Duty Is to Do No Harm – by Steve Nickman
November Mourning – by Sherry Poff
Journal Entry: A Drop in Barometric Pressure – by David B. Prather
Galloping in Darkness – by Annette Sisson
Eternity – by Wilson R. M. Taylor
When They Come – by Walter Weinschenk
Short Fiction:
Shelter Rock – by Paul Cassidy
Creative Nonfiction:
Five Aspects of Cultural Violence – by Joshua Thusat
Featured Artist: Elizabeth Marrero
Click HERE to view Elizabeth’s art and read the Artist’s Statement