BEST OF THE NET 2023; Essay in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2018;
(cited in BAE 2015, 2016, 2020, 2022); PUSHCART poetry finalist
By Lee Hope
To Stephen Dunn, In Memoriam We dedicate this Summer Contest Issue to Stephen Dunn, whose life on our earth ended on June 24, 2021. As many know, Stephen was a man of great gifts. His oeuvre includes twenty-one poetry collections and two essay collections, the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, and countless other deserved accolades. In… Read more »
By Anjali Mitter Duva and Lee Hope
We are thrilled to announce guest judge Whitney Scharer’s choice of a Winner and a Runner-Up for the Solstice Magazine annual contest. We received at least one third more entries than in each of the last thirteen years, and we carefully read each piece before we sent six finalists to Whitney. The Winner is The… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
Congratulations to Herb Harris, M.D., who has won the Michael Steinberg Award for Nonfiction, selected by judge David Mura. Of Harris’ essay Mura writes, “Portrait of an Artist as a Black Man” explores the complexities that arise when the author attempts a literal drawing of himself. When the drawing does not seem to render a… Read more »
By Kaylin Wu
In this issue, we present interviews and book reviews. Our two interviews—with Co-Editor-in-Chief Brenda Sparks Prescott about her debut novel, Home Front Lines, and with Dariel Suarez about his novel, The Playwright’s House—portray race, class and BIPOC immigrant culture, integrate politics with fiction. In a previous interview, Dariel Suarez identified the separation of politics from
By Robbie Gamble
Before celebrating the results of the 2021 poetry contest, I need to acknowledge that the wonderful poetry in this summer issue is presented against a sad backdrop. As we were reading through incoming manuscripts, we learned of the passing of Stephen Dunn, a major figure in contemporary poetry, but in particular a long-time friend and… Read more »
By Andrai Whitted
Dear readers, Whether you are new to comics, an avid fan, or anywhere in between, we have something for you in our first ever contest issue featuring Graphic Lit. We were pleasantly surprised to have entries spanning the globe, some from as far as Australia! Besides that, the range of styles, subjects, and points of… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson
What Heather McHugh says of Bulgarian poet Blaga Dmitrova’s work in her introduction to Because the Sea is Black (1989) might apply to the poems in translation featured here as they display “reverence for the brave and solitary human gesture […] and, throughout faith in a transcendent understanding.” While there remains much disconnection, division and
By Lee Hope
Dear Valued Readers, We are immersed in a split, fragmented time. As we receive vaccines and emerge from our burrows into the spring air, we see mass shootings, AAPI racism, systemic racism and voter suppression. Yet we will continue to protest, in writing and action, against oppression and in support of diverse people and causes.… Read more »
By Amy Yelin, Deidra Dallas and Lee Hope
This issue we bring you a poetry review and two interviews. Lo Galluccio aptly reviews the new poetry collection I Wish My Father by Lesléa Newman. The poetry takes a funny and poignant look at the relationship between a daughter and a father at the end of his life. The first interview, conducted by Alex… Read more »
By Oliver de la Paz
You can see the red buds on the oaks that line my street. And what had been a long and dreadful winter looks to be thawing now. A sheet of ice that was once our patio is now pocked with holes and the rust of the brick is now visible under the light sheen. I’m… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson and Ewa Chrusciel
My neighbor constructed a bridge of two beams allowing us to cross a flowing channel, so that we can walk along the miles of bog behind our houses. Crossing this homemade bridge the other day, I was reminded of the way literature and translation serve to connect us to each other as much as they… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
These days, like many of us, I find myself wondering two things over and over: when will we emerge from the half-life of this pandemic? And what will it take to not only “build back better” as the current administration promises, but to truly build a multiracial, polylingual, multicultural, antiracist democracy? I don’t know the… Read more »
By Anjali Mitter Duva and Lee Hope
Dear Valued Readers, First, a special announcement: We are thrilled to welcome Anjali Mitter Duva as Fiction Co-Editor. She is the author of the best-selling novel Faint Promise of Rain. Solstice Magazine has published two excerpts from her provocative novel-in-progress Between Light and Earth. Anjali is a co-founder of the Arlington Author Salon, a fabulous… Read more »
By Lee Hope
Even in the midst of a pandemic, literature and the arts can challenge us to act out of our better selves. At Solstice, we are taking a stand for social justice and against disinformation. In that mode, I am honored to announce our annual Summer Contest Issue with pieces that speak truth. This year, we… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
First of all, congratulations to Anne-Marie Oomen, winner of the Michael Steinberg Nonfiction Prize for her essay, “Four Winds,” and to the contest’s runner-up Herb Harris for his “To Belong in a Garden.” Of “Four Winds,” judge Megan Marshall writes that it is “an impressive feat of writerly empathy that draws us ineluctably into the… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson and Ewa Chrusciel
“The nourishment of the abiding center is inexhaustible” says the IChing. And if you substitute the word “poetry” for “nourishment” you might find sustenance for these uncertain times. If every poem is a translation of one’s perception of that abiding center, then every good translation offers another savoring of the center that is the poem’s… Read more »
By Robbie Gamble
I’m honored to present the winner of the Stephen Dunn Prize for 2020, selected by Adrian Matejka. Of Tina Zafreen Alam’s poem “& it’s hiding in plain sight” Matejka writes, “This poem is kinetic: rhythmically inventive and it is built from the kinds of sonic textures that surprise the ear and the brain. If that… Read more »
By Lee Hope
Even during tumultuous times, there is joy in publishing writers of elective affinities, in bringing disparate forms into a relationship of reciprocal richness. This collection makes readers sometimes suffer and sometimes laugh, as in Aimee LaBrie’s winning story “Rage.” As noted author and fiction judge A.J. Verdelle said of the prize-winning piece: As a story, Rage is softer… Read more »
By Andrai Whitted
In this issue we expand our comic genre, Graphic Lit, by featuring an interesting, amusing, and ultimately philosophical piece by Boston area artist Robert Sergel, “Spite“. Robert’s sparse yet engaging style pulls you into an architectural/social phenomenon that is too strange to believe but is entirely true. Robert also discusses his art, process, and inspirations… Read more »
By Lee Hope
Dear valued readers, In his novel, Love in a Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote, “He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers gave birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
Dear reader, Friends call and say, “What a strange time!” or to ask “How are you?” I hardly know what say. I’m sure you know what I mean. I always thought I would revel in being housebound – all these books to read! All these pages to fill! But this? This is the paralyzing fight… Read more »
By Robbie Gamble
In times of crisis, the poet-priest Daniel Berrigan looked to a worn adage, and flipped it. “Don’t just do something, stand there!” he admonished his friends. He was no slouch as an activist, but he also understood the importance of planting one’s feet firmly on the earth and taking a moment to absorb the implications… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson and Ewa Chrusciel
Amid this pandemic, we are reminded once again how interconnected we are, as much as we celebrate our differences. In this way here’s an extraordinary gathering of poetry in translation from Ukraine, South America and China that might also be viewed as threads of an intricately woven and richly diverse fabric of humanity. We begin… Read more »
By Lee Hope
Dear Readers, Last year, our tenth anniversary, I mentioned Solstice Magazine’s various awards: an essay in The Best American Essays 2018, cited essays in 2015 and 2016, a Best of the Net Award, several Pushcart Prize finalists in poetry, a local Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, and this year a 2019 grant from the CLMP/Amazon Literary… Read more »
By Lee Hope
How to express my enthusiasm for the profundity, irony, prose poetry and stylistic innovation in many of these pieces! This year we received more fiction submissions than ever before, and many from established, much-published authors. Paul Beatty, our award-winning contest judge chose Joanna Kim’s debut publication “Betta” as the winner. Kim has received an Emerging… Read more »
By Andrai Whitted
In this issue we continue our new comic genre Graphic Lit with an autobiographical comic poem by Grace Desmarais titled Tubes. Grace’s work gives her readers a deeply personal view into her experience of living with Chronic illnesses. Tubes, a hospital diary, is a poignant atmospheric poem allowing us as readers to gain a unique… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson and Ewa Chrusciel
This summer’s issue gathers an engaging and refreshing range of voices in translation. Josip Osti brings a sensuous, multi-faceted as a diamond vision in these evocative and celebratory poems that are as a “tiny ray of sunlight[…]illuminating the life and death lines” that Martha Kosir has deftly rendered into English from Slovene. Inspired by the
By Richard Hoffman
Brace yourself, readers. This ain’t no walk in the air-conditioned mall. These ain’t your grandma’s essays. Year after year, the submissions to our annual nonfiction contest prove, at least to me, the ability of the essay to confront our age’s accumulated untruths, to disentangle the nonsense that passes for common wisdom. For example, our winner:… Read more »
By Iain Haley Pollock
To start, congratulations are in order to poet Casey Z. Andrews. Her poem “After Life in Two Parts” won Solstice’s annual poetry contest, as judged by Reginald Dwayne Betts, author of Bastards of the Reagan Era and the forthcoming Felon. Andrews’s poem exhibits several of the elements that make me jazzed about our current poetic… Read more »
By Lee Hope
What an array of insightful, gifted, provocative pieces we offer in this Spring issue! Please go to our individual genre Editors’ Notes for salient info on our Spring Issue’s gifted contributors. We announce a new Genre for Solstice: Graphic Lit, the expert editor is our Digital Editor, Andrai Whitted! Please view our first piece in graphic poetry. See the TOC! … Read more »
By Andrai Whitted
Over the years Solstice has published a variety of pieces in different mediums including visual, audio, and photography. In 2019 we continue that tradition by adding a new genre of Graphic Lit as a category in our magazine. In future issues this section will feature comic storytelling and other forms of sequential art including comic… Read more »
By Marjan Kamali
Established writers and new voices combine in our Spring issue for a terrific range of four stories that take us from San Francisco in the early 1900s to the halls of a present-day convalescent center in the Northeastern U.S., to the clatter and commotion of a Boston restaurant and finally to a tightly knit community… Read more »
By Lee Hope
Established and new voices also combine in the next four pieces. Wandeka Gayle’s mystical, lyrical novel excerpt reveals the fears of a young girl in Jamaica as she struggles with the murder of her mother and the magical world of her Aunt Winnie. “You do everything someone tell you, child?” she said, “Besides, you not… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
Essayists are driven by wonder, by questions, by perplexity, often by shock at their own ignorance of how time unspools and becomes history. The acronym WTF? about sums it up. Absurdity abounds. Received notions and attitudes require testing. Things need to be shaken, tapped, poked, plumbed, dissected, examined. Untruths have long been part of the… Read more »
By Iain Haley Pollock
I’ve given up being a gambling man, but if I were to become one again, I would bet when future scholars write the history of this moment in American letters, they will describe a period of poetic efflorescence unlike any that preceded it. Everywhere I turn these days, I read beautiful poems. Poems that alternately leave… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson
Lidija Dimkovska’s poems presented here are all the more compelling in the plain-spoken way they grapple with their before and after perceptions of death. Recalling the best of Wislawa Symborska, they offer their clear-sighted vision with startling precision and understated grace. In these quasi-haiku by Marc Delouze, poetry speaks to the blind in words that… Read more »
By Lee Hope
This issue marks the tenth anniversary of Solstice and our first annual print issue! Ten years ago, The Solstice Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, funded our independent, online journal. Now we have an award-winning online/print publication with a staff of thirty volunteer writers and photographers. Our awards include: An essay by Baron Wormser chosen for The… Read more »
By Lee Hope
Dear Fiction lovers, I am thrilled to announce that the winner of the Solstice 2018 Fiction Contest is Thomas Benz for his story “Retrieval.” The final judge Ann Hood said, “The depiction of place and the nostalgic mood, combined with deft movement between past and present make this story a powerful one. I was impressed… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson
Poetry is of disparate images that cohere in inexplicable ways to reveal new realities. We are privileged to present poetry in translation by two hauntingly lyrical voices from Europe: Ute von Funcke and Miecyzyslaw Jastrun in this summer issue. A contemporary German poet, von Funcke, finely translated into English by Stewart Friebert, takes us into… Read more »
By Iain Haley Pollock
As one acquainted with the news cycle, I have found that despair generates an ultra-high magnetic field attracting me toward it. But working on this year’s Stephen Dunn Prize and compiling the poetry for this summer issue—my first time for both tasks as the new poetry editor—proved to be an equal and opposite force repelling… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
First off, congratulations to our contest winner in nonfiction, Megan Baxter, for her essay “Live Find” and to runner-up Judith Padow, for “Broken.” We are extremely fortunate to have had Phillip Lopate as our judge this year. Lopate is considered by many to be among our most important essayists, as well as the editor credited… Read more »
By Lee Hope
With this Spring Issue, we welcome a crop of writers new to us, and also kick off our Redux series, in which we intend to republish in each issue a few pieces from our past. The past and present blend in this publication, as it does, on another level, with some of our staff transitions.… Read more »
By Lee Hope
What a terrific lineup in this Spring issue in fiction and what a range of styles! An arresting short story told from a child’s point of view by Abby Frucht, author of six novels; a short short piece by Sonya Larson (how does she manage to fit so much into a few pages?); short shorts… Read more »
By Amy Yelin
With the launch of the Spring 2018 issue, I’m honored to step into Richard Hoffman’s big shoes and write the editor’s note. Just a quick thanks to Richard Hoffman for being out of town (nothing personal, Richard). I think it’s important to share that getting to the point of publication truly is a team effort—one… Read more »
By Ben Berman
After five years of serving as Solstice’s Poetry Editor I will soon be transitioning to the role of Contributing Editor. But solstice, as Lee Hope often reminds us, means renewal and I am absolutely delighted to welcome so many new folks to Solstice’s poetry team. First, a huge welcome to Iain Haley Pollock, who will… Read more »
By Barbara Siegel Carlson
“With a key that keeps changing/you unlock the house,” writes Paul Celan. So we continue to unlock the world with keys of ever-changing languages, crossing thresholds to new vision. In this issue we’re delighted to feature the work of two Slovenian poets: Miriam Drev and Barbara Korun. Drev, who is herself translator, probes life’s complexities… Read more »
By Lee Hope
One of our most diverse and eclectic issues of fiction yet, featuring established writers and new voices from Lagos, South Korea, the Ukraine, the Middle East, and the U.S.A. In vastly varying styles, each piece reveals outsiders clashing against, and sometimes accommodating with, their cultures. Read eminent Ukrainian author Vaskyl Makhno’s deeply quirky tale of… Read more »
By Ben Berman and Dzvinia Orlowsky
It’s OK to be another, says one of the people populating Linda Aldrich’s sonnet crown, “Scenes from a Single Life, 1985.” And in many ways, the poems in our Fall/Winter issue consider that idea – what it means to be another. We see poets stepping outside of their own experiences to consider the lives of… Read more »
By Richard Hoffman
Baron Wormser’s essay in this issue, “Arendt in New York,” begins, “She has witnessed rant that silenced every reproof. She has waited for some larger affirmation to arise, the vision of decency, but none came.” And so it is with us, here in 2017 in America. Lately I’ve been thinking that our usual metaphors for… Read more »
By Lee Hope
OUR HIGHLY ACCLAIMED SUMMER CONTEST ISSUE! Dear Readers and Writers, The Solsticelitmag Contest has found some literary treasures! From among our past annual Contest Winners and Finalists, we count a 2017 Finalist for a Pushcart in Poetry, and one of two cited Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2015 and one in The Best… Read more » Receive news, reviews, interviews, and more in your inbox! Plus be the first to hear about our latest issues, contests, and events.
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Note from the Editor-in-chief
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