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Sep 16, 2024 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey |Luke Patterson |Luisa Muradyan
Featured Selections Dear Reader, The poems in our September issue invite me to share three vivid, varied perspectives. Luke Patterson’s prose poem “Extrication Day” offers a glimpse into the life of an EMT who sometimes needs his own rescue. In Luisa Muradyan’s “I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated,” the author deftly blends reflections on Jesus with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reminding us that humor and sorrow are both human responses to the unimaginable.
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Jan 24, 2024 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey |Nick Fuller Googins |Debbie Urbanski
Our January 2024 issue explores causes and effects—between species, life choices, and how we care for others—subjects that were also on the minds of two Sun contributors as they wrote their new debut novels. Nick Fuller Googins and Debbie Urbanski imagined very different futures for humanity in the wake of unchecked climate change.
In The Great Transition Fuller Googins suggests what it might take to end the climate crisis, and what the world could be like for those who survive.
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Jan 22, 2024 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey
Interviews Like many who find their way to The Sun, our new editor, Rob Bowers, took a roundabout route, from finance to farming to publishing. Even his journey since he joined the staff seems unlikely: the business manager, the publisher, and now the successor to founding editor Sy Safransky. Whose résumé would suggest that course?
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Nov 2, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey |Bethany Marcel |Amy Dryansky |Doug Ramspeck
Can we learn to live with fire? It’s an odd question for humans to ask, since our development is intricately tied to combustion. Our Homo erectus ancestors likely used open flames to make food easier to digest, fueling the growth of their brains, as well as to stay warm, ward off predators, and eventually create communities. Fire has been a catalyst for technological advancement, too, from the kilns and forges of the Bronze Age to the rockets that send modern tourists into space.
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Oct 9, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey |Cheryl Strayed |Leona Sevick |Dan Leach
Where I grew up in the foothills of Appalachia, it was common to hear firsthand accounts of encounters with the supernatural. All manner of spirits and cryptids were purported to live in the local hills and hollers of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and any teenager could direct you to a secret spot where the rules of physics became more suggestion than natural law.
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Oct 6, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | Cheryl Strayed |Dan Leach |David Mahaffey |Tom McAllister
As part of our ongoing celebration of the magazine’s fiftieth year in print, this month’s Dog-Eared Page is an essay previously published in The Sun.
— Ed.
I didn’t read “The Love of My Life,” Cheryl Strayed’s essay about grieving her mother’s death, when The Sun first published it in 2002. I was a sophomore in college — about the same age Strayed was when her mother died — and navigating my own tragedy.
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | John Scotto |Dan Leach |Jen Silverman |David Mahaffey
When I was a senior in high school, I became obsessed with the home movies Dad kept in his armoire, behind bottles of cologne. Every day I’d reach through a cloud of Brut and vanilla musk, remove a tape from the stack, and watch the footage alone in our basement, captivated by images of the kid I used to be.
There I was at the age of eight, playing baseball in the backyard. Dad was recording me through the kitchen window, so I thought I was alone.
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Oct 3, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | Dan Leach |David Mahaffey |Jen Silverman
Years ago, when I worked in the claims department of an insurance company, my supervisor called me into his office to discuss what he referred to as my “marked decrease in productivity.” He provided me with an official-looking document that ranked all the workers in terms of their contributions to the company. My name was at the bottom. “I thought you were supposed to be smart,” he said.
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Oct 3, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey |Dan Leach |Leona Sevick
Yes, it’s cruel. An unseemly gluttony. Trapping the ortolan buntings, forcing
them to gorge in the dark, mouthfeel of seeds
their only comfort in that closed, blank space.
Drowned in amber brandy, plucked then roasted,
their tiny bones crunch softly in the mouth. The smallish wings tuck along smooth, browned skin,
like stiff Olympic lugers eaten whole.
A white cloth napkin drapes over the head
to hide the diner’s shame from the sight of
God.
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Oct 3, 2023 | 
thesunmagazine.org | Donovan McAbee |John Scotto |David Mahaffey |Jen Silverman
It started with the mouse in the grass by the sidewalk, ants
crawling on its face. Aidan wanted to touch it. I drew him back
and held him. We talked about the gray fur and the tiny ants. He asked
if the mouse was going to go home to his mama and daddy. No, I told him, the mouse won’t get to go home again. Maybe he goes
to play with his friends. No, I said again, the mouse won’t
get to play with his friends.
