Essay in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2018;
(cited in BAE 2015, 2016, 2020); PUSHCART poetry finalist

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Summer 2018

Dear Valued Readers, Our Summer Contest Issue is always a special joy, to celebrate such excellence, diversity, passion, and compassion in writing today, as a counterbalance, and even a saving grace, against the forces that attempt to divide us.

We thank our superb judges:  Terrance Hayes in poetry, Phillip Lopate in nonfiction, and Ann Hood in fiction for their careful selection of winners and finalists.

Special thanks to all who submitted. We received almost double the number of submissions this year, so the choices were especially difficult with such a plethora of fine writing.

Also, gratitude to our Solstice editors, Iain Haley Pollack in poetry and Richard Hoffman in nonfiction, for their careful selection of Solstice Editors’ Picks, along with mine as fiction editor. And thanks to our assistant editors: Robert Gamble in poetry, Amy Yelin in nonfiction, and Brenda Prescott in fiction for their essential roles in selection and judging for this issue.  And thanks to Barbara Siegel Carlson for editing the fine poetry-in-translation. And thanks to our terrific readers and to our managing editor Anita Ballesteros! And essential thanks to Andrai Whitted, our Digital Editor, who turns each online issue into a reality. A magazine is only as good as its team!

We will comment on specific winners, finalists, editors’ picks, and featured authors in each Editor’s Note, so please click on the appropriate genre.

Also special thanks to Lou Jones, a photographer of international repute, for his evocative, original images from his expanding PanAFRICA series, which embodies a vital view of Africa at work.  To support his project, please go to his Kickstarter campaign. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/102761919/panafricaproject-volume-one?ref=25w05p

And welcome to our new fab interns, Sarah Walker, Livia Hermiz and Michelle Arnwine Frias, also to our new readers/reviewers in poetry, Eileen Cleary and Richard Cambridge.

Also, good news in that “Breaking Boundaries:  Solstice Magazine’s Tenth Anniversary Reading” was just accepted for the 2019 AWP conference!  And our first annual print issue will appear this fall!  And we will have an essay in The Best American Essays 2018 appearing this fall.  Additionally this fall, Solstice Magazine will be sharing a booth at the Boston Book Festival with the fine magazine Pangyrus. So stay tuned!

Here’s to the continued, redeeming power of literature and diversity!  Lee Hope

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors' Notes

  • Fiction Editor’s Note
    by Lee Hope
  • Poetry in Translation Editor’s Note
    by Barbara Siegel Carlson
  • Poetry Editor’s Note
    by Iain Haley Pollock
  • Nonfiction Editor’s Note
    by Richard Hoffman

Fiction

  • Winner
    Retrieval
    by Thomas Benz
  • Runner-up
    The House of Correction
    by Jendi Reiter
  • Finalist
    Theme and Variations
    by Dominic Lim
  • Editors' Pick
    Agua de beber
    by Estela González
  • Editors' Pick
    Tsunami
    by Gail Wallace Bozzano
  • Editors' Pick
    Middle-Aged Woman Rethinks her Sexual Orientation while Breakfasting at a Cafe
    by Mia Caruso
  • Featured
    Between Light and Earth
    (Novel Excerpt)

    by Anjali Mitter Duva
  • Featured
    Kiss Me Hard
    by AN Block

Nonfiction

  • Winner
    Live Find
    by Megan Baxter
  • Runner-up
    Broken
    by Judith Padow
  • Editors' Pick
    The Gleaming Miraculous
    by Magin LaSov Gregg
  • Editors' Pick
    Mi Piel Morena and I went to England
    by Adriana Páramo
  • Editors' Pick
    Distanced Daughter: Reflections on Standing Rock
    by Suzie Vander Vorste
  • Featured
    Sonny
    by Michelle Blake
  • Come Home in Glory
    by Gail Hosking
  • When I was dying
    by Michele Cacho-Negrete

Photography

  • panAFRICAproject 2
    by Lou Jones

Poetry

  • Winner
    The Blue Mimes / Los mimos azules
    by Sara Daniele Rivera
  • Runner-up
    at the department of social services
    by Celeste Schantz
  • Finalist
    The Holy of Holies Man
    by Isaac Black
  • Finalist
    Dysphoria Id Est
    by Emily Florence Morley
  • Editors' Pick
    Mommy Loves You. But I Am Not Emmett Till,
    and We’ve Never Been to Mississippi

    by Isaac Black
  • Editors' Pick
    On My Two-Year-Old Brother Gone Missing
    by Eileen Cleary
  • Editors' Pick
    Aleatoric Sequence
    by Ricki Cummings
  • Editors' Pick
    On His Way To See A Man
    by Amy Lerman
  • Editors' Pick
    Ghazal for Aylan Kurdi
    by Glenn Morazzini
  • Editors' Pick
    When Lightening Rides Thunder Bareback
    by Bonita Lee Penn
  • Editors' Pick
    The Woman on Court Street Bridge
    by Celeste Schantz
  • Editors' Pick
    Thieves
    by Lee Sharkey
  • Featured
    Advice to girls who want to –
    by Ellen Hagan
  • Featured
    My mother calls them magpies—
    by Ellen Hagan
  • Featured
    To the little redheaded girl who turned in her seat on the bus to tell my daughters to shut up—
    by Ellen Hagan
  • Featured
    Lady in the streets, but a freak in the bed
    by Ellen Hagan

Poetry in translation

  • The Red Canoe
    by Ute von Funcke
  • Night Adrift
    by Ute von Funcke
  • Memory
    by Mieczysław Jastrun
  • Jasmine Bush
    by Mieczysław Jastrun

Reviews & Interviews

  • Review
    Making a Memoir: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich’s Journey to Write The Fact of a Body
    by Melanie Brooks
  • Interview
    An Interview with Baron Wormser
    by Richard Cambridge


Contributors

Avatar photoAdriana Páramo
Avatar photoAmy Lerman
Avatar photoAN Block
Avatar photoAnjali Mitter Duva
Avatar photoBonita Lee Penn
Avatar photoCeleste Schantz
Avatar photoDominic Lim
Avatar photoEileen Cleary
Avatar photoEllen Hagan
Avatar photoEmily Florence Morley
Avatar photoEstela González
Avatar photoGail Hosking
Avatar photoGail Wallace Bozzano
Avatar photoGlenn Morazzini
Avatar photoIsaac Black
Avatar photoJendi Reiter
Avatar photoJudith Padow
Avatar photoLee Sharkey
Avatar photoLou Jones
Avatar photoMagin LaSov Gregg
Avatar photoMegan Baxter
Avatar photoMelanie Brooks
Avatar photoMia Caruso
Avatar photoMichele Cacho-Negrete
Avatar photoMichelle Blake
Avatar photoMieczysław Jastrun
Avatar photoRicki Cummings
Avatar photoSara Daniele Rivera
Avatar photoStuart Friebert
Avatar photoSuzie Vander Vorste
Avatar photoThomas Benz
Avatar photoUte von Funcke

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