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Spring 2025 Issue 27.1

Featuring Steinberg Memorial Contest winner Jessie Van Eerden, and writers, Liv Kane, Shannon McCarthy, Sabrina Dalla Valle, Miel Sloan, Marah Robyn Hoffman, Erin Ruble, Carrie Lee South, Jane Salisbury, Kurt Caswell, Andi Myles, Mekiya Outini, Anne Rudig, Julie Marie Wade, Jessica Franken, Arya Samuelson, and K. Van Wert. Review Essays by Anne Gudger, Jennifer Case, and Elizabeth Lindsey Rodgers.

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2025 Michael Steinberg Memorial Essay Contest Winner

“Secret Passage” by Shea Burchill

Of the winning essay, contest judge Sonya Huber had this to say: “I found this essay so compelling because it allows the reader to accompany the author in an ongoing and complex exploration of a mystery that is still unraveling. More than narrative suspense, this accompaniment produces a sense of deep connection both to the subject matter and to the larger unknown that we all navigate. An open-ended reflection on secrets, gender identity, change, and memory, this beautiful essay presents the experience and consequences of feeling trapped in a gender binary.”

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2025 Multimedia Essay Contest Winner

“Smell Map of Kyoto in October” by Fiona Lindsay Shen

Contest judge, Navied Mahdavian remarked, "Memory is linked with smell, probably more so than any of our other senses. Behind its simple title (no, this is not just a “smell map”) and presentation (a single image), “Smell Map of Kyoto in October” is a moving graphic essay that explores the medium of comics in an unexpected way: through smell. It gestures towards the place the way memory does. It is subtle; a trace of an experience. It is less about the place and more about the person. And it is playful: as a reader, I feel like I’m now part of the process of not just the writing, but of trying to create a conventional travel document."

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ARCHIVES

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MULTIMEDIA

The Body is a Vessel

The Body is a Vessel

Check out “The Body is a Vessel” by Jesse Lee Kercheval, honorable mention in our 2023 Multimedia Essay Prize.

CRAFT ESSAYS

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INTERVIEWS

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REVIEWS

Who Do We Talk To?

Who Do We Talk To?

For the past year, I have clicked on the Bookshop link to buy a book for every Zoom reading I attended. I agreed to receive a review copy from four publishers. I say yes, I can peer review this book for a university press. In the middle of the pandemic, I have no friends. I have no family. But I do have one hundred and fifty collections of essays per day per day squared…

NEWS

CONTEST NEWS – Multimedia Prize

CONTEST NEWS – Multimedia Prize

Judge Kelcey Ervick described this year’s Multimedia Essay Prize winner as “unlike any Choose Your Own Adventure Story I’ve ever experienced.” Learn more about this year’s winner, and explore the winning essay yourself.

CONTACT

If you’ve got questions about the journal, submission policies, online content, contest guidelines, or anything else, please drop us a line.

SUBMIT

Our regular submission window is from September 1st to November 30 every fall.  Our contests run from January 1 to March 15.  Send us your work!

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