The Sun contains one interview per month, several black and white photographs, some essays, some memoir, some fiction, a couple of poems, a page of quotes, and my favorite section: Readers Write. Each month, the magazine provides a topic and the subscribers and readers of the magazine write in about that topic. The stories are funny, poignant, heartbreaking. I really love that dense little section of pages that I try to leave until last but inevitably end up reading first. It honestly brings a smile to my face every month when The Sun shows up in my mailbox.
Twice in my life have I met other people who subscribe to The Sun. Once was at a job where I was on 2nd shift supervising individuals with brain injuries. I often ended up staying late to talk to one of my coworkers when she would come in for 3rd shift. We had spent several nights just talking before one of us pulled out The Sun. The other kind of gasped and was like "I didn't know anybody else subscribed!" She is the one person that I am still in contact with from that job, and one of those people that I think I will always find something to talk to about.
The other time was at last year's BlogHer conference. I was rooming with three other ladies, two of whom I had never met before and one who I've known for more than 10 years. Two of our roommates had gone out to socialize, network, party, whatever you want to call it, and the two of us were left in the room. We were more introverted I guess, and the day's slate of events had worn us out. The other lady, one I hadn't known before the conference, pulled out her copy of the month's magazine. I think I might have squealed like a little girl when I saw it. She and I spent several hours that night chatting about the meaning of life and everything. I haven't spoken to her since, but I really believe we could pick up where we left off no matter how long it had been since I had seen her.
I love The Sun so much that it is one of my life's goals to be published in its pages. I want to have some of my photography, some of my poetry, an essay, an interview, and a Readers Write piece to be published in The Sun. Not a small goal, I suppose. I will be a subscriber as long as the magazine publishes and as long as I can scrape together the yearly cost of subscription.
One of the best parts of the magazine? There are no advertisements. It makes it cost a bit more each month to publish, but in my opinion, it's worth every penny.
Go. Read their website and some examples of the writing inside. You won't be sorry. I promise.
I love The Sun, it also was one of the few magazines I would subscribe to. Right now it's keeping the heat/lights on or the Sun, so I picked heat, but I do miss the wonderful writing and delightful stories. They always take me to another place and I'm happy to linger for awhile.
ReplyDeleteStart to finish this review comes across as a paid advertisement for The Sun Magazine. Described is every section of the magazine, but conspicuously absent are any references to a particular story, poem or essay. There is no balance, only an effusiveness that imparts emotion, not knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you view it as a paid advertisement, Chris. It was totally unsolicited and unpaid. I don't mean this blog to necessarily go into great detail about the magazine, but rather to give a quick overview. I wanted to share what the magazine has meant in my life and not highlight any specific feature in the magazine. There have been so many stories, essays, and poems that have caught my attention that I could not talk about only one.
ReplyDeleteNope, not a paid ad, it is just how Sun readers love the magazine. It is literary but it is also of the voice, the human voice and that can be hard to describe and quantify with so many humans on the planet.
ReplyDeleteMight have to have a Sun reader meet-up at BlogHer. I'm in if you are.