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On The Sun’s Fiftieth Anniversary

A Letter From The Publisher

The Sun has, in the words of our founder and editor Sy Safransky, endeavored to “look at a sad, confused world and see it as holy.” Do that for fifty years, month after month, year after year, and it’s no wonder people want to keep reading.

The Sun’s 500^th Issue

This is the 500^th issue of The Sun. In recognition of the milestone, we’ve devoted more than half our pages to a special section titled “One Nation, Indivisible,” which features excerpts from the magazine going back to the first issue in 1974. Rather than celebrate the magazine’s history, we wanted to address the current political moment by giving readers perspective on the past and courage to face the present.

Countless Labors

Our subscriber list has grown far beyond what it was then; we now have seventy-two thousand names on it. The staff is larger. The look of the magazine may have changed, but its content hasn’t traveled far from its roots. It continues to explore those big, unwieldy themes, offering glimpses of the mysterious and maddening and magnificent experiences that connect us.

Beginnings, Blunders, & Eleventh-Hour Rescues

The illustration that is now part of our logo appears for the first time on the cover of issue 9, which came out in June 1975. The artist, Tom Cleveland, took inspiration from a face on a tarot card and added a monocle for a whimsical touch. The back cover of the issue features a photo of a tree and a quote by Richard Brautigan: “I wonder whether what we are publishing now is worth cutting down trees to make paper for the stuff.”

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Twenty-Five Years Of The Sun

This month marks The Sun’s twenty-fifth anniversary. As the deadline for the January issue approached — and passed — we were still debating how to commemorate the occasion in print. We didn’t want to waste space on self-congratulation, but we also didn’t think we should let the moment pass unnoticed. At the eleventh hour, we came up with an idea: we would invite longtime contributors and current and former staff members to send us their thoughts, recollections, and anecdotes about The Sun. Maybe we would get enough to fill a few pages. What we got was enough to fill the entire magazine.

A Prayer

This is the 250th issue of The Sun. Given the life expectancy of most small journals, I’d like to offer a prayer of thanks. But on which knee? To which God? I’ve always been reluctant to identify myself with any spiritual path. I don’t even like to use the word spiritual, because it divides the world into what is and what isn’t.

On Our Fifteenth Anniversary

Someone asked me recently how I raised the money — or, as he put it, the venture capital — to start The Sun. I told him it was easy: I borrowed fifty dollars from a friend.