Spring 2014

Editor’s Note

First, a timely ANNOUNCEMENT: Solsticelitmag will be on a Grub Street panel with Talking Writing on the topic: DigitalLit: Why Online Journals Deserve More Respect at 3:45 at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston on Friday, May 2^nd. Also, we’ll be a party where editors meet writers on Thursday eve at 7pm. Go to MuseandtheMarketplace.org for their amazing weekend schedule.

Also, we announce the first recipient of the KURT BROWN Memorial FELLOWSHIP for a student to attend Pine Manor’s Solstice MFA Low-Residency, with which Solsticelitmag, an independent nonprofit, has an informal sisterly connection. Congratulations to incoming poetry student: Lisa Sullivan.

IN THIS 2014 SPRING ISSUE:

First, our cover: “Water Issues” photographic fine art journalism by Dominic Chavez. Click photography for more of this vital series on water pollution in third world countries.

Our diverse fiction ranges from a premise piece by John Brown Spiers, to subtle magical realism by David Low, to the realism of Elizabeth Searle’s not so quiet story of a quiet car, and Eric May’s depiction of the rise of a Southern African American family dynasty, and Catherine Bell’s depiction of the decline of a WASP family fortune. Also we feature short innovative work, two experimental pieces by Steven Huff, a sexual fantasy by Jenifer DeBellis and a lyrical voice piece by Vincent Craig Wright.

Our culturally relevant nonfiction includes a unique multimedia piece by Thomas Larson, also a brilliant essay investigating African American fatherhood by Trent Masiki; a lyrical piece critiquing the death of JFK by Martin C. Hansen; and finally a provocative essay critiquing psychiatry by Thomas Mallouk.

Also click on our ever-expanding feature: Book Reviews.

And don’t forget our amazing, award-winning Video Performance Poetry.

Thanks to all our fine editors, readers and staff. Please see their bios on our impressive Staff Page. And especially, we welcome to our staff our new poetry co-editor Jamaal May. We TBA, we expect also to be adding three new interns.

Finally, especially, Subscribe for Free. Receive in exchange tips on submitting to magazines, invites to book parties, lit gossip, profundities, contest dates and winners, and more! And please follow us on Twitter where we’re poised to share vital info.

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Warmly, Lee Hope

Poetry Editor’s Note

Poetry movements are, by their nature, inherently about a narrowing of possibility (let’s all stop doing that and start doing this). What tends to follow such narrowing is a synthesis between 1) what the movement brought into relief, 2) whatever movement it was a reaction to, and 3) the wildcard possibilities explored by daring new poets. When the neo formalism movement subsided, we were left with a field in which the embargo against received form was lifted. It is now no surprise that this issue of mostly free verse also contains a contemporary sestina and sonnet from Stevie Edwards and Sean DesVignes respectively.

I am grateful to be joining on as co-poetry editor at such an exciting time for American poetry. Many boundaries are being crossed, blurred, or obliterated, even while particular styles and aesthetics maintain their fidelity. One need not look further for proof than the conversation that poems by 20-something writers like Nathan Slinker and Franny Choi are having with the 90-something-year-old Simon Perchik. Perchik, who has been described by Library Journal as “the most widely published unknown poet in America,” has an ear for language and unique syntax that, for me, fits well into the shifting, unromantic, but personal lyric style that has me so excited about the next generation of fire-thieves.

As I said to my colleagues when signing on, I have no delusions that I’ll be able to fill Kurt Brown’s shoes, but I hope to make some worthy footprints alongside his.