Features Blog

Solstice contributing editor Marjan Kamali was awarded a 2022 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose. She is the author of The Stationery Shop, a national bestseller, and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. The Stationery Shop is being adapted into a...

Solstice contributing editor DeWitt Henry’s book, Endings & Beginnings: Family Essays, was longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Endings & Beginnings: Family Essays completes a trilogy-in-memoir with Sweet Dreams...

merican Essays 2020. “Exit Wound” originally appeared in the Fall 2019 Issue of Solstice, which was a print-only edition.

Director and writer Prentice Penny’s A Penny For Your Thoughts Entertainment has teamed up with writer and actor Mozhan Marnò and Marjan for the project.

Lynne’s new novel, The Dangers of an Ordinary Night, was chosen as One of the Best Books to Give This Season by the Sunday New York Times Book Review.

At silent 6AM, by the dawn’s early laptop light, I find them again: our stars. Onscreen, online—two fellow Thespians; two former Fantasticks. Blasts from my past.

In this poem, Rob Arnold explores his complicated relationship with his birth mother, and his Chamoru heritage. 

I am a Christian minister who once spent the night with a sex worker named Adam.

The morning of the funeral, I circled my childhood bedroom in a terry cloth robe. Pacing between the closet and the bedspread, I added and subtracted touches on two perfect outfits.

Our final blog in our Women’s History Month series features poet Susan Rich and her poignant look at the COVID-19 pandemic. Please enjoy this incredible work, and don’t forget to share!

Today’s blog post recognizes Khanh Ha with an excerpt from his novel Diary of a Mute Girl. Ha was recently selected as the winner of the 2020-21 James Knudsen Prize for Fiction, awarded by Bayou Magazine and the University of New Orleans. We are proud to count him as part of the Solstice family! Please enjoy this piece, and don’t forget to share!

For Women’s History Month, Solstice is highlighting several of our authors from the Winter 2020 issue who are women and/or who celebrate women in their writing. Today’s post is a piece of nonfiction from Rani Neutill. Enjoy, and please share!

The final poet featured in our Black History Month blog is Marcus Jackson with his poem “A Type of Crying” from the Spring 2019 issue.

Another poet from our Spring 2020 issue, Valerie Smith is the next featured Black author in our Black History Month blog with her poem “Expert of the Apricot Groves.”

The next featured Black author in honor of Black History Month is fiction author Ruth Mukwana and her short story “Cracked.” Please also visit the links to listen to her latest podcast episode.

Today’s Black History Month blog highlights Quintin Collins and his poem “Crushed.”

The next blog in our Black History Month series highlights Artress Bethany White and her poem “Severed: A Statement on the Ludicrous Nature of African Repatriation.”

Our next Black History Month blog honoring Solstice’s Black authors features Bonita Lee Penn’s poem “Nina’s Fire: Frantic’s Go-Go” from the Winter 2020 issue.

The next poet featured in our Black History Month blog is Matthew E. Henry (MEH) with his poem from the Spring 2020 issue “an open letter to my mixed little ‘Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals’.”

Next in our Black History Month blog is Vernita Hall and her poem from the Summer 2020 issue “The World According to Alpheaus.”

As part of our ongoing celebration of Black History Month at Solstice, we will be highlighting Black authors who have been published in both our print and online magazines over the past several years. The first blog features Tatiana Johnson-Boria and her nonfiction/poetry hybrid piece “The Uprooting.”

Graphic Lit contributor Grace Desmarais brings us a very personal comic about mental health.

This Graphic Lit piece is a mashup of a public domain children’s book, The Adventures of the Three Bold Babes, by S. Rosamond Praeger, published in 1897 and blog advice on dealing with toddlers’ tantrums—and includes erasure and collage.

The Color of Fear, tackles some of the emotions many in our community felt in recent weeks. The author, Anne McGrath collaborated with artist Casey Taylor on this raw piece of flash fiction which arcs from despair to hope.