OPENING LETTERS > FROM THE EDITORS
Spring is a time of transition. As the icy chill of winter softens and eventually yields, suggesting a promise of brightness and sunshine, the volatility of the spring emerges. I've found that nearly everything about the season is in flux, which fills me with a mixture of anticipation and uneasiness. Right about the time I hang up my winter jacket and pump up the tires on my bike, it becomes just cold enough to resemble the winter I thought I had bid farewell to a few days earlier. It's easy under these circumstances to be hesitant and allow the uncertainty of the season to hold me back. Stepping out makes me vulnerable, but if I'm being honest, deep down I really like it.
Like a baby robin breaking from its egg, or a coyote pup wiping the sleep from its eyes, lately I've started to open up a bit more, say "yes" to opportunities a bit more, and cautiously move forward. Throughout my life, I've found that it's these moments—the ones that stretch us, challenge us, and compel us to become versions of ourselves we could have never imagined—that are the most worthwhile. When I'm nervous or uncertain I feel alive--not just living but truly alive. I felt this way four years ago, when Jason first approached me about this project. Now, with sixteen issues under our belt, we have not forgotten the exhilarating (sometimes terrifying) first steps to move this dream to reality. In our sixteenth issue, we continue to challenge each other to grow stronger and expand our vision each year. Sky Island Journal was born in the spring, which always seems fitting, knowing what I know about this beautiful, dynamic, and hopeful season.
It continues to astound me and fill me with gratitude that literally thousands of writers have trusted us enough to open up and share their minds and hearts through their literary works over the past four years. By making themselves vulnerable, they have earned our respect and admiration. Of the 1,281 individual pieces that we received from around the world for Issue 16, we found these 31 to be the finest.
Readers, thank you for entering the literary terrain of Sky Island Journal. In Issue 16, you will be challenged intellectually and emotionally, perhaps pulled in directions that bring you delight or discomfort, with the reward of feeling fully alive every step of the way. By becoming vulnerable I believe we become stronger, and I'm so glad you're here to share in that experience with us. Enjoy!
Respectfully,
Jeff Sommerfeld, Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief
The bad news? We're only a few months in, and 2021 has already proven itself to be a formidable gauntlet. The good news? After surviving 2020, Jeff and I are ready to run it! We’ve doubled down on our dedication to Sky Island Journal’s core principles: positive energy, unique perspectives, rugged independence, and relentless tenacity. The last few months have tested us, but our team, our family of contributors, and our constellation of readers have all come out swinging. They're more committed than ever, and the results are on full display in our stunning Issue 16.
Trials temper us, and, like the steel of a fine blade, the more we are tempered, the stronger we become. If writing is our sword, let reading be our compass; may we all find our way to kindness, compassion, logic, and bravery, through literature’s selfless gifts of discovery. Whether you're new to Sky Island Journal, or you're already one of our over 80,000 readers in 145 countries, we're confident the new writing from around the world in Issue 16 will find a home in your heart.
We've elected to leave the "scroll-through experience" and pop-up ads to other literary platforms. By design, each published piece of writing in Sky Island Journal opens as a protected Word document for an authentic, focused, and immersive experience that encourages a close, intimate, distraction-free reading of the work. Readers, we want your experience with the work of our contributors to be singular: just as it would be on the printed page, with crisp white paper between your collective fingertips.
With no advertising on our website, you can fully engage with the worlds of words our contributors have so carefully crafted for you. With no subscription fees, you are welcome to read and enjoy whenever you like, regardless of your means. We believe in removing barriers between readers and access to high quality literature—especially in regions of the world that have traditionally been underserved by English language journals or completely ignored by the literary establishment.
We understand this is a radical departure from how many literary journals present writing to their readers online, but we think it's a refreshing change for the better. It's okay to slow down. It's okay to take your time. It’s okay to simply be present—to savor, to reflect, and to gather strength.
Welcome to Sky Island. Welcome home.
Respectfully,
Jason Splichal, Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief
Andrea Lewis > Flash Fiction > Washington, USA
Andrea Lewis writes short stories, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from her home in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in over thirty literary journals, including Prairie Schooner, Catamaran Literary Reader, and Briar Cliff Review. Her collection of linked stories, What My Last Man Did, won the Blue Light Books Prize and was published by Indiana University Press.
Annette Sisson > Poetry > Tennesee, USA
Annette Sisson has published poems in Nashville Review, Typishly, One, HeartWood Literary Magazine, Cordella, Kosmos Quarterly, Psaltery & Lyre, The West Review, and many others. She published a chapbook, A Casting Off, in May 2019 (Finishing Line) and was named a 2020 BOAAT Writing Fellow, received honorable mention in Passager’s 2019 poetry contest, and won The Porch Writers’ Collective’s 2019 poetry prize. Her recent book-length poetry manuscript, Small Fish in High Branches, was a finalist with Glass Lyre Press and a semifinalist in the Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry (University of Wisconsin Press).
Benjamin Green > Poetry > New Mexico, USA
Benjamin Green resides in New Mexico. He is the author of 11 books, including The Sound of Fish Dreaming (Bellowing Ark Press, 1996). Now 64 years of age, he hopes his new work articulates a mature vision of the world and does so with some integrity.
Betsy Mars > Poetry > California, USA
Betsy Mars practices poetry, photography, animal upkeep, and runs Kingly Street Press. Her second anthology, Floored, is now available on Amazon. “Pyriscence,” was a winner in Alexandria Quarterly´s first line poetry contest series in 2020, and she was a finalist in both the Jack Grapes and Poetry Super Highway poetry contests. She wrote Alinea (Picture Show Press) and co-authored In the Muddle of the Night with Alan Walowitz, from Arroyo Seco Press.
Carole Symer > Poetry > Michigan, USA
Carole Symer is a practicing psychologist in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she works with adolescents and young adults, from whom she learns the exquisite effort it takes to language a life. Symer also teaches at New York University and has authored nearly a thousand neuropsychological evaluations to help neurodiverse learners fulfill their civil and human rights and discover more pleasure in daily lives. Symer’s essays, articles, and poems have appeared in Across the Margin, Mutha Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Passed Note, Michigan Chronicle, and elsewhere. She is the 2020 recipient of the Anne-Marie Oomen & Katey Schultz ICCA Creative Writing Scholarship. Her debut chapbook, Glint, is forthcoming in June 2021 from Small Harbor Publishing.
Daniel Acosta, Jr. > Creative Nonfiction > Texas, USA
Daniel Acosta, Jr. is a second-generation Mexican American, whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico. He is a former professor, research scientist, and administrator. He plans to write about his experiences as a Mexican boy trying to succeed in a white American society.
E.B. Cotenord > Creative Nonfiction > Illinois, USA
Chicago-based professional dream girl, E.B. Cotenord, is the host of The eXXXistential Podcast and The Pro’s Prose YouTube channel. Both serve as literary true crime memoirs of her experiences as a sex worker. She seeks to humanize marginalized communities by writing about her life as an adult entertainer, mother, and recovering addict. She can be followed on Twitter @ebcotenord.
Elisabeth Harrahy > Poetry > Wisconsin, USA
Elisabeth Harrahy is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, but in her spare time she likes to drive her 1967 Plymouth Satellite, search for stoneflies in cold-water streams, and pull all-nighters writing poems and short stories. Her poems have appeared in Zone 3, Passengers Journal, Ghost City Review, 3rd Wednesday Review, Sky Island Journal, Edison Literary Review, Bramble, Drunk Monkeys, Constellations, The Café Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net.
Erica Hoffmeister > Creative Nonfiction > Colorado, USA
Erica Hoffmeister is a rambling soul from Southern California who now lives in Denver, where she teaches college writing and advocates for media literacy and digital citizenship. She is the author of two hybrid poetry collections: Lived in Bars (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), and Roots Grew Wild (Kingdoms in the Wild Press, 2019), but considers herself a cross-genre writer. She has had a variety of poetry, creative nonfiction and essays published in So To Speak, Drunk Monkeys, Motherly, Crab Fat Magazine, and Bright Wall/Dark Room, among others. She's obsessed with cross country road trips, pop culture, and her two daughters, Scout and Lux.
Gary Lark > Poetry > Oregon, USA
Gary Lark’s most recent collection is Daybreak on the Water, from Flowstone Press. Other work includes, Ordinary Gravity, from Airlie Press. Easter Creek is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press. His poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Catamaran, Poet Lore, The Sun, and ZYZZYVA.
J.L. Shively > Flash Fiction > New Jersey, USA
J.L. Shively has a Master of Letters from Drew University where she studied creative writing and the psychological fascination of modern ruins. When she is not teaching English Composition or riding horses on the beach, you can find her exploring old cemeteries and abandoned places. In her writing, Jessica focuses on character-driven fiction and adventure stories that are thrilling or speculative in nature. She leverages the strength of a story’s capability to showcase the humanity of horror and the power of terrific narrative. Jessica is pursuing publication for her adult, climate-fiction novel and finishing a collection of short, YA horror stories.
Josh Crummer > Poetry > Michigan, USA
Josh Crummer is a poet, professional writer and artist from Midland, Michigan. His first collection of poems, Where the Woods Meet the Water, is currently under editorial review and aimed at a late 2021 release.
Kaitlin Kan > Creative Nonfiction > Pennsylvania, USA
Kaitlin Kan is a student at Yale University studying literature and psychology. Hailing from the suburbs of Philadelphia with Latvian and Chinese ancestry, her writing draws from rich cultural ties, as well as from her extensive experiences with mental illness. She is also an experienced musician.
Kateri Kosek > Prose Poetry > Massachusetts, USA
Kateri Kosek is a poet and essayist whose writing appears in such places as Orion, Creative Nonfiction, Terrain.org, Catamaran, and Northern Woodlands Magazine. She lives in the mountains of western Massachusetts, where she teaches college English, writes for Berkshire Magazine, and, as a birder, occasionally works surveying bird populations in a nearby forest preserve. Frequently writing about landscape and place, Kateri has been a resident at Kimmel Harding in Nebraska, and this past summer, the Tallgrass Artist Residency in Kansas. “Kasia” came out of her first trip to Poland, where her father’s entire family still lives.
Kathryn V. Jacopi > Creative Nonfiction > Connecticut, USA
Kathryn V. Jacopi is a writer and educator with an MS in special education and an MFA in creative writing. Her writings have appeared in Pudding Magazine, Statorec, Fjord, Cleaver Magazine, Manzano Mountain Review, Drunk Monkeys and other publications. Her poems are forthcoming with The Awakenings Review and WhimsicalPoet. When she’s not reading, writing, or lesson planning, Kathryn’s kayaking and photographing Connecticut shoreline birds.
Kent Leatham > Poetry > California, USA
Kent Leatham is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad, including Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Fence, Able Muse, and Poetry Quarterly. He studied poetry at Emerson College and Pacific Lutheran University, and currently teaches writing at California State University Monterey Bay, located on the traditional land of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation.
Lalini Shanela Ranaraja > Flash Fiction > Sri Lanka
Lalini Shanela Ranaraja is a multi-genre writer from Kandy, Sri Lanka. She is currently completing a BA in Anthropology and Creative Writing at Augustana College in Illinois. Her writing/journalism has appeared in SAGA Art & Literary Magazine and the Augustana Observer.
Linda Petrucelli > Creative Nonfiction > Hawaii, USA
For most of her adult life, Linda Petrucelli has lived on islands—Taiwan, Manhattan, and Hawaii. Being surrounded by water suits her. Her story, “Figure Eight on the Waves,” won first place in the WOW! Women on Writing Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest. Her fiction and personal essays have appeared in KYSO Flash, Flash Fiction Magazine, Islands Magazine, HerStry, Stardust Review, and Sky Island Journal, among others. Linda writes from her tin-roofed ranch house on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island.
Lisa C. Taylor > Poetry > Colorado, USA
Lisa C. Taylor recently moved to a tiny mountain town in Colorado where she enjoys cooking without recipes, snowshoeing, and dreaming of travel after the pandemic is over. She is the author of two collections of poetry, including Necessary Silence (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2013) The Other Side of Longing with Irish writer Geraldine Mills (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2011. Geraldine Mills and Lisa C. Taylor were chosen to be Elizabeth Shanley Gerson readers of Irish Literature at University of Connecticut in 2011. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks. Lisa C. Taylor has two short story collections, Impossibly Small Spaces (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2018) and Growing a New Tail (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2015). Her honors include the Hugo House New Works Award for Short Fiction, Pushcart nominations in both fiction and poetry, and a short-listed story in the Fish Short Fiction Prize in 2020. Lisa served as a two-time mentor in the Associated Writing Program W2W scheme, and she was a Spotlight feature in the AWP online and print magazine. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine. Fiction editor and interviewer for WORDPEACE, she is also a frequent reviewer for magazines such as Mom Egg Review. Lisa offers online writing events and teaching through Whitewater Writing. She is finishing a poetry collection for publication in 2021.
Lisa López Smith > Poetry > Mexico
Lisa López Smith is a shepherd and mother making her home in central Mexico. When not wrangling kids or rescue dogs or goats, you can probably find her wandering the wilds of Jalisco. Recent publications include Maine Review, Jabberwock, K'in, Mom Egg Review, Wild Roof Journal, Tiferet, and Sky Island Journal; some of these journals even nominated her work for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize in 2020.
Lisa Novick > Creative Nonfiction > France
Lisa Novick, a graduate of UCLA in philosophy, seeks to inspire people to love the nature of their region and time-honored relationships between plants and animals. Her recent work has appeared in The Hopper, Plants & Poetry Journal, Wild Roof Journal, and The Write Launch. She is the author of Sometimes a Question, a picture book to be released by Dawn Publications (an imprint of Sourcebooks eXplore). After more than a decade of environmental outreach work in Los Angeles, Lisa is now recovering in France with her husband, Nick, a theoretical physicist, and two idiosyncratic dogs. She is relishing the terroir of France, along with boar hoof prints in the forest and prehistoric cave art from a time when people were simply one species among many. “Skippers” is part of a collection of nonfiction stories in progress that explore our relationship with the places we inhabit.
Lorrie Ness > Poetry > Virginia, USA
Lorrie Ness lives in Virginia. On weekends she can be found hiking through Shenandoah National Park, birding and writing outdoors. Nature is a refuge and source of inspiration for her. She has past or forthcoming publications in Sky Island Journal, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Barren Magazine, FRiGG, Crack the Spine, SOFTBLOW, The Maryland Literary Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Rosebud, and others.
Melissa Perri Smith > Poetry > Virginia, USA
Melissa Perri Smith is a writer and editor based in the Washington, D.C. area. She graduated from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois with a degree in International Relations and Religious Studies and currently works on a contract with the U.S. Coast Guard as a technical writer in their Acquisitions Department. This is her first publication in a literary journal, though she has work featured in the online magazine, Hapa Mag. She posts more of her writing on Instagram, @melissas_seasons.
Michele Lovell > Flash Fiction > Washington, USA
Michele Lovell lives in S.W. Washington state where she and her partner run a small nonprofit senior dog and horse rescue. Prior to this, she worked with children in the mental health field for many years.
Michelle Mounts > Creative Nonfiction > Pennsylvania, USA
Michelle Mounts is a psychotherapist who specializes in women’s mental health. For a decade, she lived in Brooklyn/NYC, where she worked as an editor at Harper’s Magazine, Modern Painters, Creative Time, and Guernica, among other publications. She has an MFA in Creative Writing-Prose from the University of Michigan, where she was a Colby Fellow and Hopwood Award recipient, and an MSW from Hunter College, The City University of New York. She began her clinical work at The Latino Commission on AIDS and in various clinics and community centers in The Bronx and Long Island. Her work has appeared in StoryQuarterly, Phoebe, and ARTnews. She now lives with her husband and son in Pittsburgh, PA, where she works as a therapist at Forward Wellness Counseling. She has been cast in the forthcoming What Would Your Mother Say? performance for her essay “The Unraveling.” You can find more of her work at Letters from Michelle on Substack.
Navila Nahid > Poetry > New York, USA
Navila Nahid is a writer and a published poet, currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. Her need for writing began young when putting pen to paper seemed more natural than going outside. Now, she writes and rewrites to capture the essence of her humanity, taking refuge within the words of her pieces. Her published works can be found in The Spectre Review, Cephalopress, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. She is also on Instagram as @seasalt.rose.
Nikki Ummel > Poetry > Louisiana, USA
Nikki Ummel is a queer writer in the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans. A career educator, Nikki started writing poetry to help cope with the trauma of teaching fifth graders. She is an Associate Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine and lives in Holy Cross with her partner.
Phillip Shabazz > Poetry > North Carolina, USA
Phillip Shabazz is the author of three poetry collections, and a novel in verse. His poetry has been included in the anthology Home Is Where: African-American Poetry from the Carolinas. Previous publication credits in journals include, Fine Lines, Galway Review, and the Hamilton Stone Review.
Sean Sutherland > Poetry > New York, USA
Sean Sutherland has had poems published in the literary magazines: The Meadow, Lime Hawk, Gravel, Prick of the Spindle, Blast Furnace, Hypertext, the 30th anniversary anthology; The Writers Studio at 30, and The Maine Review, in which he won honorable mention for their poetry prize in 2015. He was nominated for a Pushcart by the literary magazine Sleet in 2019 and recently had two poems selected in an anthology titled, Poetry for The Actor, A Guide to Deeper Truth. Sean is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. He self -published a chapbook of short poems and haiku in 2010 entitled, Forever in the City, Forever Arriving, and has had plays of his produced in New York City, Los Angeles, and Maine. Currently, he teaches a writing class as well as studying with Philip Schultz in his master class at The Writers Studio in New York City. Recently Sean has discovered the joys of camping in a tent.
Sherin Bual > Flash Fiction > Texas, USA
Sherin Bual is a new writer whose past iterations include attorney, yoga instructor, wellness consultant and hypnotherapist. Her work has been published in dyst Literary Journal and will be appearing in Bandit Fiction.
Tim Raphael > Poetry > New Mexico, USA
Tim Raphael lives in Northern New Mexico between the Rio Grande Gorge and Sangre de Cristo Mountains with his wife, Kate. They try to lure their three grown children home for hikes and farm chores as often as possible. Tim's poems have been featured in Windfall, Cirque, Canary, The Timberline Review, Gold Man Review and two Oregon anthologies. He is a graduate of Carleton College.