Issue 17 [Summer 2025] – LETTERS JOURNAL

SUMMER 2025

LETTERS: from the Editors

Dear Reader:

The title of this journal suggests not only the broader tradition of literature, but also the fact that the works we publish are at heart personal missives, from writer or artist to you.

And this issue, like all issues of Letters, is also a kind of personal address from us, the editors, on the matters of living, suffering, and spirit we find most pressing. We look, after all, not only for work that is exceptionally perceptive and technically sophisticated (which all of these works are!). We look, in addition, for work that brilliantly, honestly, and wholeheartedly addresses the kinds of questions we value most.

Because we are thinking about the ways of love, how it is found and how it is lost, we offer two ghazals: Ghazal for Layla in Wartime (A.Z. Foreman) and Tanhai تنہائی (Kara Barlow). Because we know that the love of God can feel uncertain or even impossible, we offer Lesbian Catholic School Girl (poem, Naudia Reeves) and The Story (essay, Nora Catlin). Because our perception of holiness often proves so disjointed with reality, we have A Koan (story, David Capps); because the drama of divine encounter can unfold on even the smallest of scales, we offer Metamorphosis (story, Kenton K. Yee).

Because matters of parents and children can have such life-defining stakes, we offer Troubled Dreams (poem, Richard Stimac), When I Was Eighteen (poem, Laine Derr), and God in the Dark (poem, Diane Gottlieb). Because the anticipation of loss has its own particular ache, of which we must speak, we have After Your Diagnosis (poem, Janelle Adsit); because we believe that our witness to this life must acknowledge our grief, we have the painterly photograph Fountain of Tears (Kathleen Gunton). Because faithful witness requires our figurative eyes to be wide open, we offer To See (visual art, Donald Patten). Because what we see is not always actually visible, we have Euforia abstracta en la ciudad invisible (visual art, Vivian Calderón Bogoslavsky); because we are often ignorant of the glory right before us, we offer God’s Silly Scavenger Hunt (essay, Angela Townsend).

Because we are particularly moved when we encounter in nature what is beautiful and true, we have Far Side of the Meadow (poem, John Harvey) and Revolution Blues, Salinger, Thin Space, and You (visual art, Carrie Dietz Brown). And because we believe that the depth of landscapes is informed by the frame in which they’re presented, we have Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad’s triptych, one image from which we are proud to offer as this issue’s cover.

Final note: I (Mindy) want to close with words of gratitude for my wonderful co-editor, Lily Rockefeller, who is graduating from Yale Divinity School this month and will soon be off on her next adventures. Lily’s great instincts, high standards, and good humor made this work a delight and the magazine much better than anything I could have managed alone.

May these works offer companionship, inspiration, encouragement, solace, and a doorway to awe.

Sincerely,

Mindy Misener and Lily Rockefeller
Editors
May 2025

Fiction

David Capps
A Koan

Kenton K. Yee
Metamorphosis

Nonfiction

Nora Catlin
The Story

Angela Townsend
God’s Silly Scavenger Hunt

Poetry

Naudia Reeves
Lesbian Catholic School Girl

Richard Stimac
Troubled Dreams