Andrew Snee

Giving till It Hurts

Elizabeth Miki Brina on Money and Parents

In her essay “The Work We Do,” which appears in our December issue, Elizabeth Miki Brina describes how her mother, an immigrant from Okinawa who came to the US at the age of twenty-six, happily paid for many of her daughter’s expenses even after Elizabeth was well into adulthood. It’s a subject sure to irk anyone who had to pay their own way from a young age. I talked to Elizabeth about money and parents and the fraught nature of writing about both.

Memories on Trial

An Interview with Erin McReynolds

In her mid-twenties Erin McReynolds lost her mother, who was murdered by the man she was living with. In her essay in this month’s issue, “And These Too Are Defensive Wounds,” Erin struggles with her feelings toward the man who is currently serving a prison sentence for killing her mother, and who is now up for parole. Her initial impulse is not to perpetuate the suffering caused by the murder, but would supporting his bid for freedom really be the right thing to do?

A House Is Not a Home

The buyer closed on the property in late April of this year. Despite all the logical, practical, convincing reasons for the sale, letting go wasn’t easy. The Sun’s offices had been in that house since 1989, and photos of its well-landscaped exterior had become familiar to subscribers, a couple dozen of whom would stroll up the front walk each year and knock on the door, hoping to get a glimpse of where their favorite magazine was produced and to meet the people who created it. If he was in, our founding editor, Sy Safransky, always welcomed them.

Thoreau and Me

Read an Essay from an Upcoming Issue

If I had to pick a Sun author who comes closest to achieving a truly simple existence, it would be the poet Sparrow, who writes, “I don’t live off the grid, but I’m close. I live right on the edge of the grid.” Fittingly he wrote the following tribute to Henry David Thoreau.

The essay will appear in a forthcoming print issue of The Sun, but we’re sharing it early online in celebration of Thoreau’s birthday today, July 12.

A House Is Not a Home

For more than twenty-five years I worked in a two-story bungalow at 107 North Roberson Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. My office was on the second floor. I worked at that address, The Sun’s office, longer than I have lived in any house. I’m still The Sun’s senior editor, but I’ve been doing my job from home since March 2020, when the staff decided to work remotely because of the pandemic. Without a full staff coming in every day, activity at 107 North Roberson decreased drastically. Keeping an office where the handwritten editorial-planning calendar in the hall hadn’t been updated since the spring of 2020 seemed like a waste. The board of directors agreed: selling was the right thing to do. The buyer closed on the property in late April of this year. Despite all the logical, practical, convincing reasons for the sale, letting go wasn’t easy.

What’s So Funny?

Andrew Gleason on Alternative Comedy

When Andrew Gleason began working at The Sun, I was immediately perturbed. In almost thirty years at the magazine I had never worked with another Andrew. A colleague suggested the newcomer could be known as Funny Andrew. That’s how I learned that Gleason did stand-up. While editing his essay in this month’s issue, “Occupation: Fool,” I learned a lot about my coworker’s past, but I wanted to find out more about his present.

Big Feelings

An Interview with Mishele Maron

Mishele Maron has been employed as a professional chef and worked aboard luxury yachts that sailed the world. In her essay in this month’s issue, “Anger Management,” she writes about some of those experiences and also about working at a mental-health clinic, where she participated in group-counseling sessions for men with anger issues. When we spoke over video chat, Mishele impressed me with her nuanced understanding of emotions and her sharp analysis of the various class, gender, and other factors at work in our professional and personal relationships. We talked about her seafaring years, her older daughter’s favorite reality TV show, and why she wasn’t satisfied to vent her rage on a punching bag.

All Families

Doug Crandell on Writing about Loved Ones

We’ve been publishing Doug Crandell in The Sun for twenty years now. I’ve been his editor that whole time, and I feel like I know him, even though we’ve met face-to-face only once. He writes with such honesty and openness, often about growing up in rural Indiana. I recently talked with Doug about how he navigated his family members’ responses to his essays about them. We also discussed writing as therapy, how Sun readers react to his work, and Halloween costumes in the seventies.

Removing the Mask

John Paul Scotto on Learning to Live with Autism

As someone who was a socially awkward kid — and remains a socially awkward adult — I find a lot to identify with in John Paul Scotto’s essays. He was recently diagnosed with autism, but for most of his life he knew only that he needed to hide his true self around other people if he wanted to fit in. . . . We’re pleased to have published some of his work in The Sun, including his essay in this month’s issue: “Coach’s Kid.”

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