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.
"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
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: .
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!
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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!
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.
“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
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.
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
"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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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 😉
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
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.
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
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
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?
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!
"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
"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
#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: .
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.
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
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
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
"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
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
"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
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
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
@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.
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
"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
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
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
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
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
"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
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
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
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?
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
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
"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
"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
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
Frequent Sun interviewer
@MarkLeviton
discussed racism, sexism, and classism with author and sociologist
@tressiemcphd
one year ago in our February 2020 issue.
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
"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
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.
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
"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
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