The Sun magazine
@TheSunMagazine
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Come for the personal writing, stay for the breathtaking photography. Fifty years of independent publishing.
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Joined October 2009
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We’re looking for essays that explore music with a memoiristic lens. Tell us about your personal experiences and identity with music. DM us!
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If you’ve ever wondered what our workspaces look like, here’s a photo of senior editor Andrew Snee’s cat Alva atop a stack of manuscripts. Send us photos of your pets that keep you company.
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What are your favorite literary magazines who feature emerging writers?
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Our editors are looking for queer narratives about finding community. We’re only reading completed essays. DM us!
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Welcome back from AWP! We are looking for flash nonfiction/fiction under 1k words. Please send to annagaz
@thesunmagazine
.org!
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Send us the essays that you’re afraid of your family reading. Writing that confronts fear and shame. DM us.
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"In healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other." — Wendell Berry
Sunbeams, March 2019
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What books do we need to pay attention to that are coming out in 2023?
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The Sun has lifted our paywall. In this moment of isolation, we wanted to share stories about what connects us, the challenges we face, and the moments we rise to meet them. Read the current issue or browse our 45-year archive by topic, section, or year: .
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What is the best piece of writing advice that you’ve received?
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Can you help out our new editorial outreach coordinator?
I’m looking for a short stories and personal essays for
@TheSunMagazine
that will make me laugh. I need a break from reading things that make me cry. (Although, I’m alright with laughing and crying simultaneously.) Message me!
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We’ve seen people withdraw submissions due to small typos. Everyone makes mistakes and typos will not keep you from getting published in our magazine. Please direct your stress to analyzing the mysterious
@submittable
statuses instead.
Almost jumped into the discourse and quote tweeted but then thought not worth it.
But I will say if a lit mag rejects your work solely based on a typo in your cover letter that says more about them than your writing.
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Aside from sending out some acceptances today, the most exciting part of our Friday is reading all the tweets about Prince Harry’s memoir where people have mistaken us for the British tabloid. We offer no opinions.
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Sun founder Sy Safransky offers a heartfelt farewell to fifty years of editing a magazine that celebrates “the beauty and sadness of being alive.”
Photo credit: Rachel J. Elliott
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Please welcome Sun Outreach Coordinator
@anna_gazmarian
who is now posting from our much neglected Twitter account.
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Every issue we’ve published since 1974 is now online. Thanks to
@Plank
for helping us update . What do you think?
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Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking . . . Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. — Charlotte Eriksson
Sunbeams, July 2019
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We're bringing Readers Write to Twitter! Our first
#TweetersWrite
prompt: What nourishes you?
Tag your responses (true stories only) with
#TweetersWrite
and we'll RT our favorites. Each week we'll offer prompts drawn from the current Readers Write topic.
#TheSunMagazine
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Your children are not your children. / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. / They come through you but not from you, / And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. — Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Sunbeams, August 2021
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Out-of-work
#buzzfeed
/
#huffpo
writers who’ve been waiting for time to polish and submit personal writing: send it to us. Also looking for interview pitches. See for guidelines and payment rates.
#fiction
#essay
#memoir
#poetry
@ambertamblyn
@iSmashFizzle
The best thing we can do for the journalists who were recently fired from BuzzFeed and other places is to get them hired again, immediately.
If you’re one of these journalists, I’ll retweet any info on you and what you’re looking for in a next job if you tag me in your tweet.
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Fun fact: we love to read other publications and
@GuernicaMag
continues to be one of our favorites. Submit!
One of my favorite things about being Guernica Senior Fiction Editor is bringing a unique, strange story to a meeting with our editorial team (
@autumn_watts
,
@AMrjoian575
,
@miriawaiwai
) and hearing that they love it as much as I do. All of which is to say: submit to Guernica!
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When we meet to review manuscripts, it's not just writers who get their hearts broken. Editors fall in love with submissions that aren't ready for publication, too. We try to let them down easy.
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“You can’t have freedom of religion without free speech. You have to protect all of it: the Bible and the Quran and my right to say, ‘These books are full of fairy tales.’ ”
-
@aliamjadrizvi
on being an atheist Muslim
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We will be accepting these submissions until November.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 🎉
@TheSunMagazine
is looking for essays that involve unexpected and surprising items that you've found in your attic, local yard sale, on the street. Tell us why they matter to you. Send a summary and completed draft to annagaz
@thesunmagazine
.org.
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When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. — Toni Morrison
Sunbeams, August 2020
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"Who are the happiest people on earth? A craftsman or artist whistling over a job well done. ... A mother, after a busy day, bathing her baby. ... Get your happiness out of your work, or you will never know what happiness is." — Elbert Hubbard
Sunbeams, March 2019
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From
@CherylStrayed
's "Dear Sugar" column, reprinted in our June 2011 issue and originally from
@The_Rumpus
.
November is
#NationalNovelWritingMonth
. To celebrate, we're featuring posts about writing.
#dearsugar
@NaNoWriMo
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Shoutout to
@NifMuhammad
. The way that the captures music and personal identity is what we want.
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So excited to see our contributor
@LoebDavon
read from his debut memoir at
@barrelhouse
!
#CCDC23
Order here:
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Nathan Warren took this month’s cover photo, of a grizzly bear, atop Grouse Mountain in Vancouver, Canada.
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Congratulations to
@tressiemcphd
, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Her February interview with
@markleviton
is on our website. Here's her Medium post on her path to the "genius" grant.
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Civil disobedience . . . is not our problem. . . . Our problem is civil obedience. . . . Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves . . . while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem. — Howard Zinn
Sunbeams, June 2019
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Earlier this week we were saddened to learn that writer and activist Robert Bly died at the age of ninety-four. Bly's work frequently appeared in The Sun, beginning with an interview and a selection of poems in 1978. "Nudging a Poem" appeared in our March 1995 issue.
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There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life. — Isaac Asimov
Sunbeams, May 2019
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What's the best writing advice you've ever received?
We'll RT our favorite responses to this special
#TweetersWrite
prompt while we're in Portland for
#AWP19
, and every participant will be entered into a drawing for a special daily prize.
#TheSunMagazine
#writinglife
#amwriting
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You never know what submitting will lead to!
Happy Anniversary to my first
@NewYorker
rejection! I was ambitious, hopeful, & *delusional* enough to submit a story at age 17, but this note motivated me. Now you can buy my debut, A NOVEL OBSESSION, to find out if I successfully constructed a plot 😉
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Voting isn’t the most we can do. But it is the least. — Gloria Steinem
Sunbeams, October 2020
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Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength. — G.D. Anderson
Sunbeams, September 2020
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Jacki Dickert took the photo on this month's cover when she stopped to help someone whose car had broken down in the Scottish Highlands. The view of the train tracks emerged only after she got out of her car.
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Love and justice: a call for poems. We especially want to hear from writers of color. Deadline: November 1.
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We love getting mail from our friends. This is a great issue. Go pick up a copy.
@Missouri_Review
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We are only considering completed essays. Please message us a pitch and we will be in touch if your work sounds like a good fit.
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There is no shame in feeling broken. ... Sometimes it is the breaking that leads us to the source of our own becoming. But we need not suffer alone. ... Speak your truth, ask for help, insist without ceasing on the support that you need. — Jeanette LeBlanc
Sunbeams, January 2019
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Close friendships are one of life’s miracles — that a few people get to know you deeply, all your messy or shadowy stuff along with the beauty and sweetness, and they still love you. — Anne Lamott
Sunbeams, July 2020
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We try to be as fast as possible with submissions but it’s a long process of having our readers respond to submissions, sending pieces to multiple editors, discussing in meetings, talking through potential revisions, etc. So much goes on behind the scenes!
When a pub keeps a submission well past their average response time, is it likely because they’re discussing it, weighing it again other subs, or is it just different readers with different response averages? Anyone have insight into this?
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For
#NationalGrammarDay
, we pose a question — to
#OxfordComma
or not to Oxford comma? Like this tweet if you use the Oxford, or serial, comma. Reply if you do not use the Oxford comma, and please tell us why!
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"Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands."
—Linda Hogan
#Sunbeams
, April 2018
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"What we need in the United States is not division, . . . but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black." — Robert F. Kennedy
Sunbeams, June 2018
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#WomensHistoryMonth
@RepJayapal
is the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She is an advocate for women's, immigrant, civil, and human rights. Our interview with Jayapal: .
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Jordan Hammond lives in Dover, England, and is a lover of fine wines and cheeses and tall wooden ships. He took this month’s cover photograph, of two Burmese monks reading a book in a pagoda, in Old Bagan, Myanmar.
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I grew up hearing over and over . . . that “hard work” was the secret of success: “Work hard and you’ll get ahead. . . .” No one ever said that you could work hard . . . and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt. — Barbara Ehrenreich
Sunbeams, August 2020
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Love and Justice: Poems that speak to the subtle and not-so-subtle injustices going on around us. With
@bardsbesidebars
,
@ashberry813
, Eve Williams, Anuradha Bhowmik,
@hopewabuke
,
@marcicalabretta
,
@adryansky
,
@BreezyJanae
,
@danez_smif
, and
@bumpyjonasdc
.
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We’ve always admired
@GburgReview
for publishing quality literature over the years. Please reach out in support of them.
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Marc Toso took this month’s cover photo, which features a crane petroglyph, in a canyon in southeastern Utah.
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You are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. — Alan Watts
Sunbeams, May 2021
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When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. — Andrew Solomon
Sunbeams, February 2021
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"Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as ... from a lack of bread." —Richard Wright, "Native Son"
Sunbeams, August 2018
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When questioned by an anthropologist on what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, “Ours.” — Vine Deloria Jr., Sunbeams, August 2019
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"We all carry our own deep wound, which is the wound of our loneliness. ... We have to realize that this wound is inherent in the human condition and that what we have to do is to walk with it instead of fleeing from it." — Jean Vanier
Sunbeams, March 2019
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We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. — Aldo Leopold
Sunbeams, July 2019
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Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried. — Megan Devine
Sunbeams, January 2019
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"In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. ... We are needed, that is all we can know." — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Sunbeams, February 2019
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Someday we shall look back on this dark era of agriculture and shake our heads: How could we have ever believed that it was a good idea to grow our food with poisons? — Jane Goodall
Sunbeams, July 2019
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A unionized public employee, a Tea Party member, and a CEO sit at a table. On the table is a plate with 12 cookies on it. The CEO takes eleven cookies, and says to the Tea Partier, "Look out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie." —Source unknown, Sunbeams, May 2018
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@anna_gazmarian
will be on a plane for six hours. She needs entertainment. Make her cause a scene on the plane over your writing because she probably will.
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It is therapy for me to touch the soil every day. I tell that to people who are suffering. Go touch the soil. Eat some of the food that’s not grown with chemicals. You will feel better. — Will Allen
Sunbeams, July 2019
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Amlan Sanyal's photo on this month’s cover, of a man lifting a drum of tar, is from a series documenting road-construction workers in India.
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"Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion.... Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideas hide them ... for fear of being called different." —Martin Luther King Jr.
Sunbeams, October 2018
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John Wehrheim’s photo on this month’s cover was taken at a hippie community on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in the 1970s.
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I sometimes wonder why “You’re an animal” is an insult; it seems to me that, if animals could talk, “You’re a human” would be one of their favorite insults. — Richard E. Turner Sunbeams, January 2021
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Don’t be ashamed to be a human being, be proud! / Inside you one vault after another opens endlessly. / You’ll never be complete, and that’s as it should be. — Tomas Tranströmer
Sunbeams, January 2019
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7
28
We can’t change the world for animals without changing our ideas about [them]. We have to move from the idea that animals are things, tools . . . for our use, to the idea that as sentient beings they have their own inherent value and dignity. —Andrew Linzey
Sunbeams, January 2020
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The history of Indigenous people could be the history of the planet. . . . So there’s something to learn from us about the current climate crisis.
— from "The Four Invasions,"
@nick_w_estes
, interviewed by Tracy Frisch
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"We need always to be thinking and writing about poverty, for if we are not among its victims, its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it." — Dorothy Day
Sunbeams, May 2018
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The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute. . . . It is those who ask nothing, those who see no fault, who are really selling America short. — J. William Fulbright
Sunbeams, May 2019
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9
28
"The true test of faith is how we treat those who can do nothing for us in return." —Dillon Burroughs
Sunbeams, October 2018
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8
28
Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street. . . . What would this world be like without dogs? — Mary Oliver
Sunbeams, January 2020
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Outreach coordinator
@anna_gazmarian
will be attending
@awpwriter
and needs suggestions. What off-site readings are you excited about? What panels can’t she miss? What restaurants should she go to?
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When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality. — Russell Brand
Sunbeams, April 2019
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Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. . . . The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. — Pema Chödrön
Sunbeams, November 2021
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"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, & if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart...." —Nelson Mandela
Sunbeams, June 2018
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"At this moment in history, we are called to act as if we truly believe that the Earth is a living, conscious being that we’re part of, that human beings are interconnected and precious, and that liberty and justice for all is a desirable thing." —Starhawk
Sunbeams, October 2018
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We know that the poor are so poor because the rich are so rich, that the causes of poverty can be traced to deliberate decisions and deliberate economic and political policies designed to benefit the rich and powerful. — Allan Boesak
Sunbeams, August 2020
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Frequent Sun interviewer
@MarkLeviton
discussed racism, sexism, and classism with author and sociologist
@tressiemcphd
one year ago in our February 2020 issue.
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i hope i die / warmed / by the life that i tried / to live — Nikki Giovanni, “The Life I Led”
Sunbeams, April 2021
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The time has come, God knows, for us to examine ourselves, but we can only do this if we are willing to free ourselves of the myth of America and try to find out what is really happening here. — James Baldwin
Sunbeams, December 2021
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Today is World Autism Awareness Day. Please take a moment to read and share this interview by Mark Leviton with Steve Silberman on autism diagnosis — and misdiagnosis:
@MarkLeviton
@stevesilberman
#WorldAutismAwarenessDay
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Send us a query on here that contains the conflict within your piece. If it sounds compelling, we’ll reach out for a draft.
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"The reason to preserve wilderness is that we need it. We need wilderness of all kinds, large and small, public and private. We need to go now and again into places where our work is disallowed, where our hopes and plans have no standing."
—Wendell Berry
#Sunbeams
, April 2018
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From our 2018 interview with
@IjeomaOluo
. The full text is available in our online archives: .
#nopaywall
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This month’s cover photo, of a sea turtle resting on the beach in the early evening, was taken by
@thompsoncd
on the Big Island of Hawaii.
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Best part of our job. We get just as excited as writers to publish work that we believe in.
NO GREATER HIGH THAN FIGHTING FOR AN ESSAY THAT YOU PASSIONATELY BELIEVE IN AND GETTING AN EMAIL THAT IS HAS BEEN ACCEPTED. YEEEEEESSSSSSSS, THIS IS WHY I DO MY JOB. This writer has been submitting since 2013. Persistence pays off.
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Some of other favorites include:
@pshares
,
@onestorymag
,
@TheSchooner
,
@EcotoneMagazine
,
@Orion_Magazine
,
@believermag
. We have a lot of literary crushes.
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3
26
There’s no more central theme in the Bible than the immorality of inequality. Jesus speaks more about the gap between rich and poor than he does about heaven and hell. — Jim Wallis
Sunbeams, April 2019
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"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. ... Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere." — Eleanor Roosevelt
Sunbeams, December 2018
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The parts that embarrass you the most are usually the most interesting poetically, are usually the most naked of all, the rawest and goofiest and strangest and most eccentric, and, at the same time, most representative, most universal. — Allen Ginsberg
Sunbeams, January 2019
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