OPENING LETTERS > FROM THE EDITORS
You need to know that there are several writers in this issue who are risking their lives publishing with us. They’ve deemed that risk acceptable in order for them to express themselves and for you to have the opportunity to experience and share their art.
The fact that writers anywhere in the world have to face this dilemma enrages us, but it also fuels our operational discipline and the steady hand required to provide their work with a worthy home: an international platform with engaged readership and editors who are unafraid to privately support and publicly defend them.
Writers—like all human beings—desire and deserve the freedom to express themselves without fear of censorship, imprisonment, torture, rape, or targeted assassination by state actors. Our contributors are family, and here, it's family over everything. So, governments and regimes targeting our writers take note; we are relentless, and we will never leave one of our own behind.
Regardless of where you live in the world, your corporate media is likely compromised, and your state media is likely censored. You are being lied to on the daily. Independent news journalists—and literary writers who publish in independent journals like ours—are risking their lives right now to tell the stories of the people, places, and cultures being actively besieged. Follow them. Read them. Watch them. Listen to them. Educate yourself. Learn how you can support innocent people in places you have never been, as the horrors of war and state-sponsored terror descend upon them. Learn, as writers, how YOU can amplify your own voices in order to stand up for what is good and decent, what is kind and compassionate.
Without the freedom of expression, we can never truly live, or love, or discover, or grow. Without it, we can never truly become what we were created to be—what this fragile world so desperately needs us to be right now.
Sky Island Journal’s mission is to provide readers around the world with a powerful, focused, free-access, advertising-free literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. 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.
Our unwavering dedication to quality, consistency, kindness, respect, and expediency has helped us grow and fulfill our mission in ways we never dreamed possible when we began this passion project nearly 10 years ago. Going from unknown, industry-disrupting outsiders to being referred to as “a bucket list publication” by accomplished authors and emerging voices alike—all around the world—has been a humbling journey that we’ve had the privilege of sharing with so many of you.
Our fierce independence and unwavering support of our contributors around the world has given us a reputation in the international literary community. It’s also given us the honor of growing and nurturing our own community. Our constellation of readers (over 160,000 in 150 countries) and our family of contributors (over 1,300 in 59 countries) learn, share, and grow together; they support and champion each other’s work in person, over email, and on social media. So, join us in supporting freedom of expression at every turn. Start with Issue 36. Read. Risk. Learn. Grow. Love. Be kind. Be curious. Be brave.
As with anything you choose to do in this life, the real flex is how many lives you can positively impact. Influence means nothing if you're not helping somebody else grow. It has been said that, “Real power is when your presence inspires action—when your story, and the stories of those you elevate—spark positive change in the world.” Real power builds leaders, and real leaders build more leaders. That’s who we are. That’s who our contributors are. That’s who our readers are.
And we will never stop.
Welcome to Sky Island Journal. Of the 2,770 individual pieces that we received from around the world for Issue 36, we found these 47 to be the most powerful. Enjoy!
Respectfully,
Jason Splichal, Co-Founder and Co-Editor
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau said, "I went to the woods to live deliberately."
Since June 1, 2026, I have been going to the woods to find community.
Nearly every night for the past two months, I have driven to the Kettle Moraine State Forest as a member of the SummerStage of Delafield community theater group. We are producing a modern retelling of a Shakespeare play, and throughout the artistic process, we have learned from each other, supported one another, and grown as a community.
One of my former professors once suggested that healthy communities do not happen by accident; they need to be intentionally cultivated.
Our Shakespeare play is one of four productions on the SummerStage schedule this summer, and our very first meeting included the entire company of all four shows. The Artistic Director invited all actors, costume designers, sound engineers, stage managers, and everyone who would engage in bringing these shows to life on the stage. We made connections and shared our unique roles within the community. We discussed shared expectations of how to be good stewards with our partners at Lapham Peak State Park and specifics regarding how to treat one another as members of the community. We left nothing to chance, intentionally committing to our shared responsibilities to develop the kind of community where others felt respected and enjoyed a sense of belonging. One might say we also went to the woods to live deliberately.
For nearly 10 years, Jason and I have made intentional choices to cultivate the literary community of Sky Island Journal.
Among those choices, we decided to embark upon this journey as a truly independent publication, where writers could be free to write, and readers could be free to read. We wanted to remove barriers and share what we believe are the most powerful literary works from across the globe. Therefore, we chose to read submissions blindly, meaning no cover letters, biographies, or names accompany the submitted pieces. At the same time, we engage in deep reading cycles and deliberation as an editorial team. In doing so, we can share the works of established and emerging writers side-by-side, growing a brilliant and vibrant community of contributors. To date, we have welcomed over 1,300 poets and writers from 59 different countries to this community.
We also wanted this community to be one that respected the reader. That is why we chose to keep the website completely free from advertising and make access to read the works completely free as well. We are honored to share this community with over 160,000 active readers from 150 countries around the world.
By design, each piece 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.
We want readers, thinkers, and writers to be connected in this community. That is why, throughout the year and especially at the time of a new issue release, we actively seek out the websites of these writers so that if a particular voice speaks to you, it is easy to find more of their work or even connect via social media or other means of communication. We invite you to check out the "Our Contributors" page, which contains hyperlinks to the websites of hundreds of our contributors, listed alphabetically by first name.
To all of our poets, writers, and readers, you are all welcome here. If you are brand new to the community or have been with us since the beginning, it is an honor to share this space with you. This is a community where we learn from one another, support one another, and grow together. We're so happy you're here!
Enjoy Issue 36, and please visit often!
Respectfully,
Jeff Sommerfeld, Co-Founder and Co-Editor
Ajit Nagpal > Flash Fiction > Australia
Ajit Nagpal is a Brisbane-based writer of fiction about ordinary lives under pressure. He is drawn to the quiet fractures and small decisions that hold people together or break them apart, to stories that sit with moral ambiguity rather than resolve it, and take seriously the ways circumstance and place reshape who we become. His story, “The Tenth Night,” was shortlisted for the 2026 Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize, and his fiction was a semi-finalist for the 2026 Sorrento Creative Writing Prize. His work is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine. He is currently completing a short story collection.
Alexa Brockamp Hoggatt > Poetry > Washington, USA
Alexa Brockamp Hoggatt is a poet and programmer from Tacoma, Washington. Although there is endless machine to rage against, Alexa writes poetry as a sort of running list of reasons humans deserve to go on existing: the tenderness, the shared experience, the soft parts. Her dad woke up every morning after coughing through the night from breathing sand and dust at work and said, “It’s another perfect day,” and that is what she wants her poems to say: even if you have sand in your lungs, it’s another perfect day. Her poems have been published in Sky Island Journal, Wildscape. Literary Magazine, and Gather Literary Magazine, among other places. She was selected as a Garden Poet for Lakewold Gardens’ 2024 ‘Poetry in the Garden’ event.
Aman Alam > Poetry > India
Aman Alam is an Indian poet and student of English literature at Jadavpur University, India. His poems appear or are forthcoming in journals including The Threepenny Review, Rattle, Frontier Poetry, Mantis (Stanford University), Acumen Poetry, and elsewhere.
Amy You > Poetry > California, USA + China
Amy You is a poet whose work moves between English and Chinese, exploring language, displacement, and cultural memory. Born in Beijing, China, she currently lives in California. Outside of writing, she enjoys singing, playing the piano, and drinking matcha.
Casey Morris > Poetry > United Kingdom
Casey Morris' writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Decadent Serpent, Atropos Poetry Magazine, Ginosko Literary Journal, SOUL Forte, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife and son in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. When he's not writing, he works as a special needs educator. He especially enjoys time with family and reading in the sunshine.
Christian Knoeller > Poetry > Indiana, USA
Christian Knoeller is Professor Emeritus of English at Purdue University and a past President of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. He is also author of Reimagining Environmental History from the University of Nevada Press. His first book of poems, Completing the Circle from Buttonwood Press, was awarded the Millennium Prize. His next collection titled Time Signatures is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin later this year. Another volume of poetry, Where Rivers Find their Home, is currently in progress.
Connie Soper > Poetry > Oregon, USA
Connie Soper is a poet living and writing in Portland, Oregon. She likes to visit small towns, hike, and walk along Oregon’s public beaches. Many of her poems are inspired by these experiences as well as other travels, and have appeared in Ekphrastic Review, Catamaran, Cider Press Review, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART, and elsewhere. Her first full-length book of poetry, A Story Interrupted, was issued by Airlie Press in 2022.
Coulombe > Poetry > Florida, USA
Coulombe is a writer, poet, and teacher from Miami, Florida. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a degree in English Literature, they have not been able to stay still. They’ve taught English in Spain, France, and now have their sights on Peru. An avid traveler, they visited a new country every month last year. Their work has been published in the Eunoia Review.
David I. Hughes > Flash Fiction > United Kingdom
David I. Hughes lives in Cornwall, UK, where he divides his time between writing, photography, and exploring the coast. After a career in marketing and many years of international travel, he retired early to pursue the creative work he had long postponed. Much of his writing is rooted in Cornwall’s landscapes, old industries, and the lives shaped by them. Recent achievements include the October Project Grand Prize, Semifinalist in the LitFox Poetry Book award, a shortlist in the Mairtín Crawford short story award, and publication in The Berlin Review, Poetose, London Grip, Ink, Sweat & Tears and other international journals. His short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies: Hermitage Press (“Salt & Stone”), Four Tulips (“Out to Sea”), and Hollowpoint (“First Strike”). He launched his first novel, The Listener, a work of speculative literary fiction, in 2025. He remains grateful for every reader who spends time with his work.
Dibyangana Maji > Creative Nonfiction > India
Dibyangana Maji is a student and writer who explores grief, memory, and the quiet spaces between people. Her work has appeared in Sky Island Journal, Spillwords, Sea Glass Literary, WhyNot Magazine, and anthologies such as Writer’s Workout, among others. She is drawn to the subtle moments where absence speaks as loudly as presence.
Eric Goldfarb > Poetry > Georgia, USA
Eric Goldfarb writes poems and essays about the quiet reinventions that shape a life. His work appears or is forthcoming in ONE ART, Hippocampus Magazine, Third Wednesday, Midsummer Dream House, Panorama, and elsewhere. After decades in technology and private equity, he returned to the page. He lives with his wife in Atlanta, Georgia.
Fiza Ali > Creative Nonfiction > Washington D.C., USA
Fiza Ali is a Pakistani-American and medical student at Georgetown University. When she's not studying, she enjoys writing about concepts in the natural world as a way to better understand her inner one. Her work is shaped by her experiences as a woman, human relationships, and love for medicine. She hopes to continue growing as a writer and overcome any and all writer's blocks that will inevitably come her way.
Freya Young > Poetry > United Kingdom
Freya Young lives near the beach and countryside in Dorset, UK, with her husband and three children. She studied English with creative writing at The University of Nottingham, and though she has had many jobs (from waitressing in a fish and chip shop to producing documentaries) she has always been writing. Her poetry and stories are often an intimate reflection on universal themes, endeavouring to express our complex inner worlds with tangible relatability.
Greg Hughes > Poetry > California, USA
Greg Hughes is a Pushcart Prize–nominated poet and nonprofit marketing consultant based in Redondo Beach, California. His work has appeared in Rattle, Only Poems, Crab Apple Review, and After Happy Hour Review. He holds a B.F.A. from SUNY Purchase.
Joanna Lech > Flash Fiction > Poland
Joanna Lech is an acclaimed Polish writer, poet, and novelist, author of five poetry collections and three novels. She has been repeatedly shortlisted for Poland’s most prestigious literary honors, including the Nike Literary Award, the Silesius Poetry Award, and the Gdynia Literary Award. Widely translated internationally, her work has appeared in prominent publications such as Guernica, Atlanta Review, Two Lines, and White Pine Press’s anthology Scattering the Dark. A proud alumna of the UNESCO Cities of Literature residency network, she is a recipient of numerous international fellowships across Europe.
John Cohle > Flash Fiction > Illinois, USA
John Cohle is a writer from central Illinois. He completed his undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing at the University of Iowa. He has worked in restaurants, warehouses, and until recently, consumer financial protection. He is now gainfully unemployed and taking the opportunity to wander the world with his wife. This is his first published story.
Ken Holland > Poetry > New York, USA
Ken Holland has had work widely published in the journals including Tupelo Quarterly, Rattle, and Atlanta Review. Poetry forthcoming or recently published in Willow Springs, Poetry South, Tar River Poetry, South Carolina Review, and Catamaran. Three Pushcart nominations. Finalist in Black Lawrence Press’ 2025 Chapbook competition, finalist in the 2025 Moonstone Press chapbook competition, which Moonstone subsequently published, semi-finalist for the 2025 Word Work’s book-length Washington Prize, as well as having placed first in New Ohio Review’s 2022 competition, among others.
Kristin J. Kelley > Poetry > Massachusetts, USA
Kristin J. Kelley is a Boston-based poet and editor whose work explores grief, family inheritance, and the quiet imprints of loss and survival. She hosts and organizes a poetry reading series that raises money for local charities. Her recent poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Arnoldia and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Kyra Anderson > Creative Nonfiction > Massachusetts, USA
Kyra Anderson co-edited the anthology, Gravity Pulls You In (Woodbine House, 2010), a recipient of the Mom's Choice Award. Her work has previously appeared in Brevity and Little Old Lady Comedy. Kyra lives in Western Massachusetts where her every move is carefully monitored by her small, elderly dog.
Maria Cangro > Poetry > New York, USA
Maria Cangro is a second-year MFA candidate in poetry at Hunter College, where she also teaches courses in literature and creative writing. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets and HAD and has been supported by fellowships from Lafayette College, Hunter College, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College. She lives in New York City.
Megan Stillwell > Poetry > New Jersey, USA
Megan Stillwell is a poet from New Jersey. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Sugar House Review, Apricity Press, and elsewhere, and she was longlisted for Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest in 2024. She works as a mother, teacher, and herbalist, and she lives under an enormous red oak on the side of a little mountain.
Meribeni Murry > Poetry > India
Meribeni Murry is a poet based in Nagaland, India. She is an educator. She writes about the natural world. She has a deep love for trees and when she isn't teaching, you'll probably find her in the backyard talking to trees. She has been published by Maya C. Popa and The Winged Moon Magazine besides other online publications.
Nabhan Khraishi > Creative Nonfiction > Palestine
Nabhan Khraishi is a Palestinian journalist, media researcher, and writer based in Ramallah. For more than four decades, he has worked across print, broadcast, and digital media, documenting political, social, and cultural life in Palestine for local, regional, and international audiences. His career began in the early 1980s as a journalist and editor with Al-Fajer Daily Newspaper, where he reported during a formative period for the Palestinian press. From 1989 to 1991, he worked as a reporter and columnist for the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, writing on Palestinian affairs for an international Arabic-language readership. In the early 1990s, he was part of the Jerusalem bureau team of The Washington Post, contributing to regional coverage and news gathering. Between 2003 and 2022, he served as a West Bank correspondent for Radio Sawa, producing reports and features grounded in fieldwork and lived experience. Alongside his reporting, Khraishi has played a significant role in media education and development in Palestine. He directed the Media Resource Center at Birzeit University, a nonprofit community outreach center supporting journalists and media students, and later lectured for many years in online journalism, focusing on digital tools, ethics, and professional standards. He has authored numerous research papers on Palestinian media, including media law, press freedom, ethics, and the impact of foreign funding. Khraishi holds a degree in Middle East Studies from Birzeit University and completed graduate studies in broadcast journalism at Syracuse University. He writes in Arabic and English and continues to explore literary nonfiction rooted in lived human experience.
Oisín Harris > Poetry > United Kingdom
Oisín Harris is a senior course administrator for a university and a poet who is based in Canterbury, UK. Their poetry explores grief, the wonders of nature and art's power, as well as what it means to remember. One thread running through their poetry is the liminality of the past. Oisín's poems have appeared in The Denver Quarterly, The Moth, The Exacting Clam, The Sublunary Review, and elsewhere. Being interested in translated fiction, they have also contributed a chapter entitled, “Women in Translation and Contributing Reasons of Underrepresentation,” in the eBook Translating Women in the Anglosphere: Activism in Action.
Paris Baldante > Flash Fiction > New Mexico, USA
Paris Baldante is an adjunct instructor at the University of New Mexico, teaching classes in composition, creative writing, and technical communication. She has an MFA from UNM, where she served as managing editor and nonfiction editor of Blue Mesa Review, the university’s flagship literary magazine. In 2024 and 2026, she was awarded the Hillerman-McGarrity Scholarship in Creative Writing, and in 2026, her fiction received an honorable mention for the AWP Intro Journals Project. She has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College.
Perla Kantarjian > Poetry > Lebanon
Perla Kantarjian is a Lebanese-Armenian poet and journalist based in Beirut. Her debut poetry collection, You Must Become Field, is forthcoming from Bad Betty Press (UK) in September 2026. Her poems have been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, highly commended in the Charles Causley Poetry Competition, and her manuscript has been named a semi-finalist for the Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prizes and the St. Lawrence Book Award, and shortlisted for the Magma Poetry Pamphlet Competition, among others. Her work appears in Wasafiri, Electric Literature, Black Warrior Review, Sky Island Journal, and others and is archived on the Moon as part of NASA's Lunar Codex. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she was the Sonny Mehta Scholar.
Rebecca Rush > Poetry > California, USA
Rebecca Rush (she/they) is a queer, autigender writer & neurodivergent peer support coach in Santa Monica, CA. Her poems have appeared in numerous places, including Oddball Magazine, One Art, and Arc Poetry Magazine. They hold a B.A. in English Literature with a Concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Connecticut.
Richard Cole > Poetry > Texas, USA
Richard Cole is the author of three books of poetry: The Glass Children (The University of Georgia Press), Success Stories (Limestone Books), and Song of the Middle Manager (winner of the Grayson Books 2021 Poetry Book Contest, Grayson Books). He is also the author of a memoir, Catholic by Choice (Loyola Press). His poems and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, Hudson Review, Sun Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, The Main Street Rag, The Penn Review, Image Journal, Sky Island Journal, and various anthologies. Honors include an NEA fellowship, a Loft Mentor Series award, two Pushcart Prize nominations, and a Bush Foundation grant. Cole works as a business writer in Austin, Texas.
Seth Frame > Creative Nonfiction > New York, USA
Seth Frame's work has appeared in Blood+Honey, The Argyle, Sky Island Journal, and Great Lakes Review, with work forthcoming in Thomasonian. He is a writer based in Schenectady, New York. His creative nonfiction explores themes of place, memory, and human connection, drawing on his background in archaeology and his years living in the American West.
Susmita Mukherjee > Flash Fiction > India
Susmita Mukherjee is a Kolkata-based author whose fiction, screenplays, and poetry explore memory, silence, and the emotional undercurrents of everyday life. A former Army Public School teacher, she brings two decades of experience in hospitality and IT education to her writing. Her work appeared in Indian Literature(Sahitya Akademi), Kitaab, Literally Stories, BULL lit mag, Setu Magazine, Sabdodweep Web Magazine, Literary Yard, and Sky Island Journal, among others. Her debut poetry collection, When the Earth Sang of Us, is now available on various platforms worldwide.
Zoleikha Baloch > Creative Nonfiction / Poetry > Iran
Zoleikha Baloch is a Baloch writer whose work rises from the wind, dust, and quiet endurance of her homeland in southeastern Iran. She writes about mothers who wait, children who dream, and the fragile spaces where memory and survival meet. Living in a region with limited access to the outside world, she gathers stories shaped by silence, resilience, and inherited memory. Her work has appeared in journals such as Sky Island Journal, Belladonna’s Garden, Mascara Literary Review, Chestnut Review, and Plants & Poetry Journal.