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May 2023

News & Notes

An Inner State

Kate Vieira on Audience and Belonging 

By Anna Gazmarian, Outreach Coordinator • May 22, 2023

May: This Month in Sun History

A Look Back for Our 50th Year of Publication

May 1, 2023

Camille Guthrie on Writing Fiction

By Staci Kleinmaier, Assistant Editor • April 18, 2023
All news & notes
The Sun Interview

Speaking Of Tongues

Justin E.H. Smith On The Mysteries Of Language

This is an extremely creative and spontaneous moment for language. There are whole sociolects that you and I don’t even know about, because we’re too old or we don’t belong to the communities of people who have come up with them. Emoji are fascinating because they’re a return to the ideographic sources of a lot of writing.

By Finn Cohen
Fiction

Sound Art

Outside the airport he saw a white girl with dreads in a T-shirt with the Rising Phoenix logo — a bird with wings on fire. She’d even written his name with a Sharpie on a piece of paper, along with the word Media, which is what he’d claimed to be.

By Katya Apekina
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

All-American

My perceived faults would be erased the day I donned the letter jacket that bore my last name across the back, all my inconvenient vowels blazing, with Cheerleader in a semicircle underneath.

By Kate Vieira
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Field Guide to Falling Ill

I can’t say what it’s like to suffer from a severe, chronic illness, the kind that knocks your life into a new orbit. But I can tell you what it’s like to be in the postscript of illness, its undead state, where the crisis has passed but recovery isn’t certain. It’s a dull, heavy place.

By Jonathan Gleason
Readers Write

Tattoos

A memorial, an act of rebellion, a reminder of survival

By Our Readers