ISSN 2642-0104 (print)
ISSN 2641-7693 (online)
Founding Editor, Juliette Sebock
The God in the Hearth, Pushpanjali Kumari
Showy Yellow Flowers, Maggie Frank-Hsu
Visual Art
Fiery Times, Kaitlyn Demsey
Cover Image
Ember Garden, Carella Keil
In the leadup to bonfire, we shared a series of micropoems across social media:
Poetry Contributor
Maggie Frank-Hsu is a San Diego-based writer and editor who self-published her first book, Be About Something, in 2020. Her writing has also appeared in Publishers Weekly, smithsonianmag.com, and in her own weekly newsletter on writing. Instagram: @maggiefrankhsu
Showy Yellow Flowers
Poetry Contributor
D.W. Baker is a poet and teacher from St. Petersburg, Florida who writes about place, bodies, belonging, and the end of the world. His work appears in Gastropoda Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, and Modern Haiku, among others, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He is a poetry reader for Hearth & Coffin. See more at linktr.ee/dwbaker
Tricia Knoll
Scritch of metal tines on concrete called
our gang from the fort in the woods.
We abandoned paint-can seats,
acorn cups and mushroom-rotted logs.
Fathers in padded jackets and duckbill hats
raked oak leaves in low October sun.
Scritch of rake – we brought twigs for treats
as fathers whooshed up fire with a little gas
and much damp smoke and shifted us
from one side to the other as the wind eddied.
No one thought of air pollution, climate change
or carbon sequestration. This was ritual,
pretend cook fires on the oxbow of the Platte,
banks of dry waving grasses, tribes circled.
Smoke trending to pale. From the smackling
of a burn pile, this taut smell was fall,
going toward Halloween and shorter days.
Liquid fire tongues leapt. If the men
talked politics, we didn’t listen
as they broomed strays toward the bonfire.
If this was a playdate, we didn’t know it.
If the future would yield up yard debris bins,
we were too deep in rites of fire to imagine it.
When the heaps were ash, we ran
back to our fort, sugared up
on ashy marshmallows,
a wild smell of char in our hair
replacing summer’s mowed lawns.
We’d seen the dragon,
heard it cackle and expected fall
would always be the same.
Fathers. Rakes. And fire.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for picking up our latest issue of Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine! With summer heat surrounding us, and hints of autumn creeping in, we’re grateful to embrace this season’s theme, bonfire.
Whether through pop culture references or your own experiences, you surely have a fiery image come to mind when you hear this issue’s title. I know I certainly did! Unsurprisingly, our incredible contributors brought just this life, alongside so many nuanced interpretations of the theme.
For this theme, we gave submitters the following prompt: “The crackling wood and the warmth of the flames fill the night air. We sit around at the beach, or maybe the first football game of the season, watching the embers glow in the darkness as the flames lick the sky. Send us work that speaks to the primal allure of the bonfire or reflects on the tales passed down through this timeless gathering.”
From Mahaila Smith’s “Wildfire” and Emma Wells’s “ Autumn Camp” to Pushpanjali Kumari’s “The God in the Hearth” and Kaitlyn Dempsey’s “Fiery Times,” you’ll feel theflames and smell the smoke as you page through this issue.
As always, thank you to the N&S staff, submitters and contributors, readers, and other supporters who make this issue and all we do possible.
Take a seat around the bonfire, and enjoy.
Juliette Sebock
Editor-in-Chief, Nightingale & Sparrow
Hello, dear readers, contributors, submitters, authors, and anyone else who supports our little literary corner. Now that we’ve entered the second half of 2023, I wanted to take a moment to share some personal reflections and provide insight into the workings of all things Nightingale & Sparrow.
First and foremost, I’d like to express my deep gratitude to each and every one of you who has been a part of our journey since the very beginning. It’s incredible to think about how far our little corner of the literary world has come. Your unwavering support and passion for our magazine, press, and imprints have been the driving force behind its success.
However, I feel it’s essential to be transparent about some challenges I’ve been facing, which might impact operations in the coming months (if you’ve been working us directly, you may know it already has). As you know, N&S prides itself on nurturing and showcasing exceptional literary talent, but life sometimes presents unexpected hurdles.
Over the past few years, I have been dealing with various health issues, ranging from chronic diagnoses to more targeted crises. These have, at times, caused delays and challenges in maintaining our publishing schedule. It’s been a difficult balancing act, but I want to assure you that my dedication to Nightingale & Sparrow remains unwavering.
As much as I wish I could personally handle every aspect of our front-facing work, it has become increasingly challenging. Please know that I am doing my best to manage our outstanding projects and backlog while ensuring the highest quality for each publication.
When I first began Nightingale & Sparrow, I was the only one doing every possible task behind the scenes, from formatting our publications to promoting titles both new and from our existing shelves. I’ve been so lucky to have some amazing team members join the lit mag and, though on a more limited scale, a few helping hands with N&S Press.
We’re actively working to intitiate a new round of recruitment and have some more volunteers on board. Like so many others, 2020 and its aftermath threw us into disarray and led some members of our team to need to move on from N&S. For context, we have myself and our lit mag editorial team handling all aspects right now, including production, communications, and social media
In light of my health constraints, I am actively exploring ways to optimize our processes and maintain open communication with our wonderful authors and other “birds in our nest.” I want to ensure that every project receives the attention it deserves, even if it requires some adjustments to our timelines—as some may have noticed, a few of our early 2023 titles have been waiting in the wings for their times to shine.
All this being said, thank you for being an integral part of our literary family. Your presence and appreciation for our endeavors keep us inspired to shine even in the face of challenges. As we journey through the rest of this year and onward, we’ll strive to keep our spirits high and present you with outstanding publications that resonate deeply.
Juliette Sebock,
Founding Editor
Publication Date: 21 March 2023
Nightingale & Sparrow Press
Genre: Poetry
M.E. is arguably the most stigmatized illness of this century! It stands for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis which means inflammation of the brain and spine with muscle pain Prof. Malcolm Hooper). It is a neurological-immune disease comparable with MS and polio Dr Bryron Hyde, Nightingale Foundation Canada).
However, a lack of research and funding have caused this biomedical disease to be stigmatised as a psychological/ psychiatric disorder for decades by some members of the medical profession, until research in recent years has begun to substantiate the organic biomedical nature of this disease for which formal recognition and policy changes were gained in 2015 (USA) and 2021 (UK).
I have dedicated this collection solely to raising awareness of this disease through my own journey and personal experience, in the hopes of shining a ray of understanding in to the metaphorical and literal darkness associated with this disease. It’s my most fervent aspiration to contribute to the paradigm shift regarding perception and understanding of this condition. While policies and clinical guidelines have formally changed, attitudes and perspectives have not yet fully caught up on a mainstream scale. This is a necessary breakthrough if patients are to have the medical, social, and community support they greatly deserve and require.
This collection is a labour of seven years. I began writing these poems in the dark while I was blind and paralysed in a nursing home, memorising them, then dictating them letter by letter through tracing on my carers hands over weeks, sometimes only managing a word a day. Sometimes with weeks of rest in between. To have them now in print to share with you is nothing short of miraculous and I’m truly grateful. I hope you find value, insights, and understanding in my creative offering.
Eira Stuart is passionate about social justice and has written extensively in support of M.E. patient advocacy as guest writer for the M.E. Association. Her article M.E.; A Conundrum in Care has recently been published in nurse Gregg Crowhurst’s (a well regarded advocate nurse and expert on M.E. care) guide on M.E. care: More Notes for Carers.
Eira’s recent literary publications include featured micro poetry in Nightingale and Sparrow’s “Heat” issue press release, publication in an anthology entitled Screaming from the Silence, in support of victims of domestic violence (Vociferous Press 2020), But You Don’t look sick, an anthology to raise awareness of invisible chronic illnesses such as M.E. and Fibromyalgia (Indie Blu(e), Jand a nonfiction series of reflections on unity conscious entitled Eudaimonia. She has two published poetry collections: Sophistry (2012) and Metanoia (2020).
Eira has been nominated for Sundress Presses Best of the Net Anthology 2020 and short-listed at The Brit Writers Awards 2010.
Publication Date: 4 June 2024
Nightingale & Sparrow Press
Genre: Poetry
Accumulating moments that force the speaker to reconsider her childhood expectations, Bough Break attempts to maintain a sense of kindness toward the delirious grown-up world and the strange, sharp people who stay long after they make their impressions. Through the confluence of memory, media, and the meticulous eye of the speaker, each poem disturbs a moment of calm in a young girl’s world—a disturbance that creates a sudden overwhelming awareness of the delineation between self and other, care and apathy, dependence and separation. These are the moments right before the cradle falls, when the baby realizes she’s in a tree and the branch beneath her is cracking.
Jessica Hudson received her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Michigan University, where she worked as an associate editor for the literary magazine Passages North. Her work has been published in CHEAP POP, Fractured Lit, The Pinch, So To Speak, and West Trade Review, among others. She currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she writes and reads creative nonfiction beside her snoring black cat. Read more of her work at jessicarwhudson.wixsite.com/poet.
