OPENING LETTERS > FROM THE EDITORS
As we roll into 2023, like many of us, I have taken time to reflect on the year gone by. During these past twelve months, I’ve traveled thousands of miles, visited sites new and familiar, visited people new and familiar. The kaleidoscope of memory flashes landscapes that fill my senses to the brim, and time stamps form in my mind of weddings, concerts, plays, and sporting events that draw a smile across my face. So much of the year was about making good on promises kept on hold from the years past, riding the wave of anticipation all the way.
But when I let the images settle and get to the deep riverbed of 2022, it is the quiet moments that sustain me: meandering walks through the neighborhood allowing my dogs to choose our route, dealing a hand of cribbage, euchre, or sheepshead to family and friends, or sitting down with a good book without a cell phone in sight. It’s also the memories that allow the sound to return that bring forth gratitude: laughing around a campfire while telling jokes and stories, singing at the top of my lungs through a karaoke microphone, blending my voice with a choir, and listening intently to the cry of an eagle over my kayak. The appreciation of each day’s gifts, no matter how big or small, comprises the full picture this past year.
Each year, we spend so much time putting in the work and hustling to make deadlines at Sky Island Journal--this is work that we love, but before I respond to social media posts about this current release, go back to editing our next podcast episode, or any other work, I am going to fully engage and appreciate the experience of sharing Issue 23 with readers like you. Reminiscent of 2022, this issue contains poems and narratives that take me to places familiar and brand new, where I can explore and continue to grow. We welcome back friends who’ve been on this journey with us for years, writers who continue to challenge and delight us with their stunning poetry, creative nonfiction, and flash fiction. We also get to meet and introduce Sky Island Journal readers to poets and writers who join us for the first time—we say it in our acceptance letters and we mean it, we hope they’ll stay with us in the months and years to come.
The past inspires me to keep moving forward, and for now, I’m thankful you’re here to join us today and enjoy all that Issue 23 has to offer. Welcome, and please come back often!
Respectfully,
Jeff Sommerfeld, Co-Founder, Co-Editor-in-Chief, and Host of our companion podcast: Voices from the Sky
Sky Island Journal hails from southwestern New Mexico, where the desert meets the mountains and the indigenous meets the exotic. This is a land of shapeshifters, where the old gods find sanctuary. This is a forever land, one of Gemini dualities: a place where the twins—time and space—are conjoined. The fabric between worlds is thin here, the veil between dimensions translucent and porous. You feel, at once, in the vibration of your blood, the bright sun of all our warm origins and the dark shadows of all our cool returns. This place powers us, but winter—even in all its bare beauty—exacts a toll. We often find ourselves exhausted from chasing long shadows on short days. It is easy to lose hope.
Whenever we find ourselves losing hope, our contributors remind us of just how resilient language can make the human animal. The power of words to reflect, define, and create the reality in which we live is never lost on them. Reading their work allows us to travel backward through time, to be truly present in the singular now, and to imagine an infinite array of possible futures. It allows us to escape the grasp of these difficult days, but it also allows us to embrace them and live them more fully. Their collective work provides us with a portal through which we may step. Choosing to do so allows us to live beyond the limits of our corporeal experience. Choosing to do so reveals the depth of humanity’s potential. Choosing to do so gives us hope.
Whether you're new to Sky Island Journal, one of our over 700 contributors, or already one of our 125,000 readers in 145 countries, we know you’ll find something in this issue to nourish your inner fire as the temperature outside continues to drop. This journal continually teaches us that hope favors the brave, and our contributors are about as fearless as they come.
We’ve elected to leave the "scroll-through experience" and pop-up ads to other literary platforms. By design, the writing in Sky Island Journal opens as a protected Word document for an authentic, focused, and immersive experience that encourages a close, intimate, distraction-free reading of the work. We want your experience with the work of our contributors to be singular: just as it would be on the printed page, with crisp white paper between your collective fingertips. Without advertising, you can fully engage with the worlds our contributors have so carefully crafted for you. Without subscription fees and pay walls, you are welcome to read and enjoy whenever you like, wherever you like, regardless of your means. We believe in removing barriers between readers and access to high quality literature, especially in regions of the world that have traditionally been underserved by English language journals or completely ignored by the literary establishment.
Of the 1,536 individual pieces that we received from around the world for Issue 23, we found these 38 to be the finest. Welcome to Sky Island. Welcome home. Ad astra per aspera!
Respectfully,
Jason Splichal, Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief
Alexa Brockamp Hoggatt > Poetry > Washington, USA
Alexa Brockamp Hoggatt is a Pacific Northwest based writer and accepts her role as caffeine addicted Pacific Northwesterner with a sense of solemn duty. Her work is inspired by dualities: the grit and glory of her city, the beauty and ache of change, the tragedy of incarcerated children, and the kindness and hope that lives within those same kids. Her poetry has previously appeared in Beyond Words Magazine. This poem is for the kids of the book club.
Amy Marques > Flash Fiction > Brazil + California, USA
Amy Marques grew up between languages and cultures and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She penned three children’s books, barely read medical papers, and numerous letters before turning to short fiction and visual poetry. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and has work published most recently in Streetcake Magazine, MoonPark Review, Bending Genres, Gone Lawn, Jellyfish Review, Sky Island Journal, and Reservoir Road Literary Review.
Arthur Altarejos > Poetry > New York, USa
Arthur Altarejos is a Filipino community organizer, community worker, and health educator based in New York City. He likes to write about the things lost and gained in translation between Hiligaynon, Tagalog, and English, the languages of his home. Outside of writing, he plays video games too much, reads a little, likes to cook for friends and family, and collects colored vinyl and tropical plants.
Becca Liss > Poetry > New York, USA
Becca Liss is a poet, fiction writer, and software engineer based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Vermont, she likes running and teatime. Sky Island Journal is her first publication.
Bill Brymer > Poetry > Kentucky, USA
Bill Brymer is a writer and photographer in Louisville, Kentucky. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in New Plains Review, Poetry South, and Barely South Review.
Chad V. Broughman > Flash Fiction > Michigan, USA
Chad V. Broughman was the recipient of the Rusty Scythe Prize Book award and earned the Adobe Cottage Writers Retreat honor in New Mexico. He has published two short story collections––the forsaken and slighted––through Etchings Press, and his fiction can be found in journals nationwide, such as Carrier Pigeon, East Coast Literary Review, River Poets Journal, Burningword, Pulp Fiction, Sky Island Journal, and From Whispers to Roars. As well, he is anthologized in Write Michigan Short Story Anthology, On Loss, and Scribes Valley Anthology. He is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, holds an MFA from Spalding University and served as co-editor for the fiction/poetry blog "Cafe Aphra" based out of the United Kingdom. Chad teaches English and Creative Writing at the secondary and post-secondary levels but is most proud of his roles as husband and father of two rambunctious young sons.
Christian Knoeller > Poetry > Indiana, USA
Christian Knoeller is Professor Emeritus of English at Purdue University. His first collection of poems, Completing the Circle from Buttonwood Press, was awarded the Millennium Prize. A Past President of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, he also received their Gwendolyn Brooks Prize for Poetry. His most recent book, Reimagining Environmental History was published by the University of Nevada Press (2017). Current projects included a sequel on environmental history, Revisiting Wild America, and a collection of poems entitled Time Signatures.
Christy Hartman > Flash Fiction > Canada
Christy Hartman is a Canadian writer based on Vancouver Island. She has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of British Columbia. When not writing, Christy loves experimenting with creative vegan meals in her kitchen and enjoying the beauty of the West Coast with her husband and dog.
David Jenkins > Creative Nonfiction > Colorado, USA
Anthropologist David Jenkins is the author of Nature and Bureaucracy: The Wildness of Managed Landscapes (Routledge 2022). He has taught at MIT and Bates College and worked in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. For the last dozen years, he has worked in public lands management, where he tries to do some good for the planet.
Devin Buie > Poetry > North Carolina, USA
Devin Buie is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she received her B.A. in English and Comparative Literature. She spent her time at UNC studying Creative Nonfiction writing and fell deeply in love with poetry and lyrical essays. Her work celebrates feeling deeply—specifically delving into intense, often tender emotions and how they create intimacy within interpersonal relationships. When she’s not practicing her tarot skills or working as a barista in the coffee shop that pays her to hang around, you will usually find her in another cafe drinking an oat milk cappuccino, reading a good book, or writing until her hand hurts. Sky Island Journal is her first publication.
Diana K. Malek > Poetry > Connecticut, USA
Diana K. Malek is a teacher who lives in rural Connecticut with her husband. Her poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in 8 Poems, Eco Theo Review, Ligeia Magazine, Hole in the Head Review, and Ghost City Review. She is currently working on her first full length poetry collection.
Dick Altman > Poetry > New Mexico, USA
Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, Tatterhood Review, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. He is a poetry winner of the Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition. He has, in progress, two collections of published poetry: Voices in the Heart of Stones and Telling the Broken Sky.
Gene Twaronite > Poetry > Arizona, USA
Gene Twaronite is the author of four poetry collections. His poems have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies. His first poetry book Trash Picker on Mars, published by Kelsay Books, was the winner of the 2017 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Arizona poetry. His latest poetry collection is Shopping Cart Dreams. A former teacher, horticulturalist, and University of Arizona Instructional Specialist, Gene has an MA in Education, and has been writing and publishing in a variety of genres for over fifty years.
Ginger Graziano > Poetry > North Carolina, USA
Ginger Graziano, originally from New York City, is a writer, artist, and graphic designer living in Asheville, North Carolina since 2001. She sees trees instead of skyscrapers and knows how blessed she is. Her poems and short stories have been published in Kakalak, The American Journal of Poetry, The Great Smokies Review, Stone Voices, Embodied Effigies, The Conium Review, and Writing in Circles, The Art of Soul-Making among several others. Her memoir, See, There He Is, was published in 2015.
Greg Friedmann > Poetry > Virginia, USA
Greg Friedmann's poetry has appeared in Cagibi, Panoplyzine, Beyond Words, The Northern Virginia Review, The Poetry Society of Virginia, and other journals. He and his wife live alongside a channel of the Potomac River in northern Virginia, inspiring him to write on riparian themes, particularly on nature's power to console and inspire.
Heddy Edwards > Poetry > Virginia, USA
Heddy Edwards is a poet, singer-songwriter, music producer, and native of the southwest suburbs of Chicago. She currently resides in northern Virginia with her husband and their two rescue dogs.
Jess Hagemann > Flash Fiction > Texas, USA
Jess Hagemann's recent work has appeared in Southwest Review, Castle of Horror: Femme Fatales, and Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga. She has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School. Her debut novel, Headcheese, won an IPPY Award in Horror.
John Skinner > Poetry > Indiana, USA
Born in 1968, John Skinner is the second of three children. He grew up in the mountains of northern New Mexico where he developed a fascination and appreciation for Native American art and culture. He is an admirer of literature in all forms and relishes any time that allows for reading or writing. He is a proud husband and father and resides with his family in Floyds Knobs, Indiana.
Julene Waffle > Poetry > New York, USA
Julene Waffle, a graduate of Hartwick College and Binghamton University, is a rural public school teacher, an entrepreneur, nature lover, wife, mother of three boys, three dogs, three cats, and, of course, she is a writer. She finds great pleasure in juggling all these things and seeming like she has it together. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal Blog, NCTE’s English Journal, La Presa, The Ekphrastic Review, and Mslexia, among others. She was also published in several anthologies, and her chapbook, So I Will Remember, debuted in 2020.
Laurel Benjamin > Poetry > California, USA
Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area native, where she invented a secret language with her brother. She has work published in Lily Poetry Review, Burningword, Eunoia, South Florida Poetry Journal, Fourth River, Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down: An Anthology of Women's Poetry, among others. Affiliated with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and Ekphrastic Writers, she is a reader for Common Ground Review and has featured in the Lily Poetry Review Salon. She was nominated for Best of the Net by Flapper Press in fall 2022.
Linda C. Wisniewski > Creative Nonfiction > Pennsylvania, USA
Linda C. Wisniewski is a former librarian and journalist who lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where she volunteers at the historic home of author Pearl S. Buck. Her work has been published in Toasted Cheese, Hippocampus, and other literary magazines. She is the author of a memoir, Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage and a time travel novel, Where the Stork Flies.
M.B. McLatchey > Poetry > Florida, USA
M.B. McLatchey is a poet and writer living, writing, and teaching in Florida. Author of five books, including the award-winning titles Beginner’s Mind (Regal House Publishing, 2021) and The Lame God (2013 May Swenson Award, Utah State University Press), she is recipient of the American Poet Prize from American Poetry Journal, the Annie Finch Prize from National Poetry Review, and was recently nominated for the 2020 Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. McLatchey is Professor of Humanities at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Poet Laureate of Florida's Volusia County, Chancellor to the Florida State Poets Association, Arts Ambassador for Atlantic Center for the Arts, and U.S. Ambassador to the HundrED global foundation for education. She received her graduate degree in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University, MFA in Poetry from Goddard College, and her B.A. from Williams College.
Nicole Cosme > Poetry > Rhode Island, USA
Nicole Cosme was an award winner for poetry in the 2021 Writer’s Digest Competitions. Her work has appeared in The Decadent Review, Prime Number Magazine, Seisma Magazine, The Dillydoun Review, and elsewhere. She holds a BS in Speech and Language Science and lives in New England with her husband and dogs.
Nora-Lyn Veevers > Creative Nonfiction > Canada
Nora-Lyn Veevers has worked as a teacher, curriculum coordinator and school principal. She lives and writes in Prince Edward County on the shores of Lake Ontario, Canada, on a small horse farm with her artist-husband. Her essays have appeared in After the Art and Essay Daily; they recently long-listed in Room’s Short Forms writing contest and have received honourable mentions in the Crossroads International writing contest and the Wind and Water writing contest.
Patrick Malka > Flash Fiction > Canada
Patrick Malka (he/him) is a high school science teacher from Montreal, Quebec, where he lives with his partner and two kids. His most recent fiction can be found in The Raven Review, Nocturne Magazine, and Five South's The Weekly.
Roger Camp > Poetry > California, USA
Roger Camp lives in Seal Beach, California where he muses over his orchids, walks the pier, plays blues piano, and spends afternoons reading under an Angel's Trumpet with a charm of hummingbirds. When he's not at home, he's photographing in the Old World. His work has appeared in Spillway, Slant, North American Review, Pank, Southern Poetry Review, and Nimrod.
Sam Fouts > Flash Fiction > Ohio, USA
Sam Fouts grew up in the Cleveland area and is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in creative writing at Miami University. When he's not writing, he's probably playing video games or eating grilled cheese.
Sara Eddy > Poetry > Massachusetts, USA
Sara Eddy is author of two chapbooks: Tell the Bees (A3 Press) and Full Mouth (Finishing Line). Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Threepenny Review, Pink Panther, and Raleigh Review. She is Assistant Director of the writing center at Smith College and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Sarah Aziz > Poetry > India
Sarah Aziz is a poet, journalist, translator and illustrator based in Kolkata, India. She is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in English Literature at Loreto College, University of Calcutta. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Voice of America, Mantis (a Journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation housed at Stanford University) and The Lumiere Review, among others.
Sarah Dickenson Snyder > Poetry > Vermont, USA
Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has three poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), and With a Polaroid Camera (2019) with Now These Three Remain forthcoming in 2023. Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO.
Sarah Safsten > Creative Nonfiction > Utah, USA
Sarah Safsten (she/her) is a current MFA student studying creative non-fiction at Brigham Young University. Her work has recently been published in journals such as Inscape, Exponent II, and Ships of Hagoth. When she isn’t reading, writing, teaching, answering emails, or working endlessly on her thesis, you might find her ballroom dancing and making Korean food.
Sheleen McElhinney > Poetry > Pennsylvania, USA
Sheleen McElhinney's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review, Slant, Bayou Magazine, Free State Review, The Laurel Review, Empty House Press, and elsewhere. Her debut book, Every Little Vanishing, was the winner of the 2021 Write Bloody Publishing book award. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with her family.
Yoda Olinyk > Poetry > Canada
Yoda Olinyk (she/her) is a Canadian memoirist and poet passionately exploring the hearty, sharp-edged topics that make us all human, including love, connection, and grief. Yoda serves her community by offering workshops that focus on writing toward addiction, recovery, and most recently, she has launched a workshop on the subject of mother. Yoda's work has appeared in Button Poetry, SamFiftyFour, Third Iris, and Quail Bell. She has also published a full-length memoir called Salt and Sour.