See what’s new in our latest issue . . .
From the editors
From The Editors . . . Recently I (this is Pat) ran into a former student at a conference. As we caught up, I learned that he was working as the nonfiction editor for [Prestigious Literary Magazine], a place I’d long ago given up on, I told him, after coming close so...
Secret Passage (28.1)
By Shae Burchill
The furnace in the house I grew up in was massive. As tall as my father and wide enough that it acted as a rumbling steel wall, partitioning one side of the basement from the other. The huge silver vents that protruded from it gave it the appearance of a metal octopus-monster, and when it came to life, the sound it made was more roar than hum . . .
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Coming & Going
By Nick Nagel
live in Texas now but I’m originally from California, which is a very popular place to be from, especially if you live in Texas.
One thing many Texans have in common is that they’re actually Californians. I’m reminded of a famous Texas-themed bumper sticker.
“I wasn’t born in Texas,” the bumper sticker says, “but I got here as fast as I could.”
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28.1 CONTENTS
Winner, 2025 Steinberg Memorial Essay PrizE
Shea Burchill, “Secret Passage”
Essays
Evan Silver, “How Birds Fly”
Pamela Alexander, “Among Hawks and Hummers”
Brenda Lin, “Interstitial Space”
Cameron Carr, “Some People Think They Should Go to Heaven but Not Have to Die to Get There”
Mandy Len Catron, “Flickering Like Lichens”
Rob Marks, “An Enchantment of Language”
Mikaela Osler, “On Purity: Notes from America’s Long Trails”
Adele Barker, “The Long Arm of War in the Arctic”
Mike Nagel, “Coming & Going”
Lee Reilly, “Care and Kara”
Ralph James Savarese, “All My Heads and All My Tails”
Patricia Foster, “The Hidden World”
REVIEW ESSAYS
Julija Šukys, “These Little Sums: On Writing Through the Last Crisis (and the Next)”
Chris Arthur, What Is It Like to Be Alive? Fourteen Attempts at an Answer
Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year 169 Sherrie Flick and
John Gallagher, “Inter- Review”
Sherrie Flick, Homing: Instincts of a Rust- Belt Feminist
John Gallagher, Rust Belt Reporter: A Memoir