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You are my anchor,
my lighthouse,
my comforting blanket,
the earth that reminds me that my roots are stronger than I think
when I feel ungrounded…
The Painful Comforts of Loneliness: A Review of Paddy McAloon’s I Trawl The Megahertz
This work soothes the heart as both a lullaby and an ode to the lonely, but its comfort also carries a clear warning: If we spend our lives living in the fantasies in our head, we will lose the lives we were meant to live.
Plant a Tree on Arbor Day
When you plant a tree, you sow the thoughts of leafy morns and lovely afternoons. You plant the thoughts of beauty growing beneath the countless suns and moons…
Celebration in a Tree City
Trees, trees, trees
everywhere we look
line the streets.
as though in a book.
Elegy for a Tree That Forgot My Name
I carved a heart you swallowed in bark
not out of hunger,
but ritual.
Every autumn you let go
more easily than I do.
Every spring,
you grew further from the boy who named you.
Quarterly & Special Issues
Submissions next open from June 1 to August 31 2024
December 18, 2025
This late in December — Not just a bud, A fully blooming rose, Small. But still a full rose…
December 17, 2025
Swanson probably didn’t know she was updating an ancient rite. She simply opened her livestream one day in mid-December and talked about how the holidays were making her blue...
December 16, 2025
Once, I was a soldier, brave and bold,
a guardian of sugar-spun realms,
where candy canes grew like trees
and laughter rang like crystal bells.
December 16, 2025
Respecting my friends’ wishes to remain anonymous, I don’t include their names here, as surely some of you would reach out to them. Who wouldn’t want to befriend someone living in a great place to visit?
December 15, 2025
Step through the grand doors of our latest issue, “A Walk Through the Museum,” wherein each piece – whether poem or short story – found inspiration in an artifact, historical site, or artwork. The collection of short stories, poems, and essays delves into the beauty, the wonder, and the need to remember our past while looking to the future.
December 14, 2025
“A single perfectly-browned latke
slid onto his plate…” I stop reading,
cannot go further, until I digest this.
A devout Catholic feeding a Vietnamese
teenager a latke she prepared for him
in the town of Gladness, Connecticut?
December 13, 2025
I am majestic and glorious. Those lovely evergreen candles add a nice Christmassy touch when people walk in the door. Yet, you spend all your time with that puny, insignificant tree in the other room. You ignore me and all my splendor…”
December 12, 2025
She is reduced to a label, a role, a service. But this series shows us what happens when a woman refuses to stay small. When she dares to write her own name back into the story. When survival becomes a kind of authorship.
December 12, 2025
Oh, we’ll leave the tree up for you, Sonny,” she’d write to him. Her nickname for him — So like the sun was her baby boy.
December 11, 2025
Holiday traditions create feelings of nostalgia in all of us, young and old. Twinkling lights on a Christmas tree, the smell of baked goods floating through the air, and freshly-fallen powdery snow — all evoke the warm feeling of tradition, family, and love during the holiday season.
December 10, 2025
Finding the ornament would be quite a feather in my fedora, but where to locate it? That was for me to find out — to turn question marks in mysteries into exclamation points in solutions…
December 10, 2025
Hummus and salsa, chips and pitas, olives to cranberries, yams to sweetness — oh, what delight from such bounteous platters. Chimes of the hour with music to sound, singers, instrumentalists, all gather ’round…
December 9, 2025
I suppose waiting until Christmas Eve was not the best of ideas. But this is when people are the most desperate and least festive, trying to make the season jolly for their loved ones while feeling inadequate to do so. That makes it the best time to find a target.
December 9, 2025
With her camel humps bound in an iron brassiere of modesty, she inspired me, the newest magi, to bring cinnamon to the kitchen crèche…
December 7, 2025
December 7, 2025
“As quickly as they arrived, they were gone.
In this vicious assault just after dawn,
Our lost innocents, so wickedly killed,
Left us the voids that could never be filled.”
December 6, 2025
It seems as if Mother instinctively knew when the decorative Poinsettias would arrive at the local flower market. Off she’d go with me in tow in search of the perfect Poinsettias to adorn our home.
December 5, 2025
When Mary’s babe was born, the visitors were three,
Rich were the gifts they brought and gave on bended knee…
December 4, 2025
A toy train would be nice, to show me you care, but it will get old, and collect dust somewhere. Love never dies, and never grows old. With memories made there are stories to be told.
December 3, 2025
So, whether you’re married to a novelist, have an aspiring writer pal, or just love writing “stuff”, this list of gifts for writers should supply you with the perfect choices this holiday season.