Editorial

Letter from the Poetry Editor

Poetry Issue #6: Bias November 20th, 2020 November 20th, 2020 Letter from the Poetry Editor: How We Will Move Forward—Together, or Not at All by Steve Granzyk he choice of bias as the theme of our current issue was intended to cast a wide net. As a result, you will find a range of poems depicting individuals who suffer from the bias of others as well as poems portraying the struggle some have with their own ...

Editor’s Introduction: Code Blue

Editorial Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Editor’s Introduction: Code Blue by Tracy Granzyk ur COVID-19 Special Section cover image, taken by resident physician Julie Muchinyi, captures what she is witnessing at the frontlines of care in New York City as her hard-earned intern year rolls into just her second year as a doctor. This issue goes live with the number of positive COVID-19 cases continuing to rise, challenging the mental and physical health ...

Letter from the Fiction Editor

Fiction Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Letter from the Fiction Editor: Heroes by AM Larks ave you ever wanted a hero to come rescue you from life? From your own mess? From circumstances beyond you control? I have a good friend who, when I was talking about why we need heroes, told me this story. When he was five years old, he wrote a letter to Superman asking for his help, asking to be ...

Letter from the Editor

Editorial Issue #5:Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Letter from the Editor: Heroes All Around Us by Tracy Granzyk “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” —Martin Luther King Jr. iving in Chicago, Illinois, one of the cities and states with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, I find it painful to watch vulnerable populations fall victim to this virus in large numbers. Social determinants of ...

Letter from the Poetry Editor

Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Letter from the Poetry Editor: Of Heroes, Poets, & Prophets by Steve Granzyk any of the poets in the summer issue, dedicated to heroes, provide acutely observed accounts of those desperately trying to save lives among the hundreds of thousands of patients who have COVID-19. Besides their descriptions of the physical and emotional suffering of patients, they provide sympathetically imagined first-person accounts of the fears and exhaustion ...

Editorial Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Editorial Letter from the Editor | Tracy Granzyk Letter from the Fiction Editor | A. M. Larks Letter from the Poetry Editor | Steve Granzyk Editor’s Note: Code Blue | Tracy Granzyk

PSM 5 COVID Section

Special Section Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 COVID Special Section Healthcare Worker Anointing by Julie Muchinyi Editor’s Introduction: Code Blue NONFICTION Five Ways My Nervous Breakdown Prepared Me for the Pandemic | Amy Goldmacher On Hospital Waiting Rooms | Jillian Luft Happy Hour | Jeffrey Allen Mays A Pixelated Death | Paul Rousseau Thoughts on a COVID Mother’s Day Brunch | Rebecca Pelton A Perspective | Ruth Ticktin Birthing During a Pandemic | Andrea Eisenberg FICTION Lemonade | Susan Hettinger If Packing, ...

Mental Health Awareness Contest Winners

Contest Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Mental Health Awareness Writing Contest Editor's Note: Why We Need to Elevate the Voice of Vulnerable Populations NONFICTION Winner Comorbidity | Todd Richardson Runner-Up Whiteboards and Courage | Beth Burgmeyer FICTION Winner Bodies in Flight | Eren Harris Runner-Up Scrambled | Robert Kramer POETRY Winner The Fall | Aubrey Zahn Runners-Up OBSESSIVE / COMPULSIVE | Shay Alexi Saving Sylvia | Laurinda Lind

Letter from the Fiction Editor

Fiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Letter from the Fiction Editor: Things with Feathers by AM Larks mily Dickinson’s “ ‘Hope’ is a thing with feathers” was one of the first poems I ever read and loved. It captured everything that is hope. Each stanza simplified what hope is and yet made it so much more complex. Hope is small and large, it is specific and broad. This comes from the imagery that Dickinson ...

Letter from the Editor

Editorial Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Letter from the Editor: Hope Begins in Darkness by Tracy Granzyk “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” —Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird ur fourth issue’s theme of Hope, coupled with our inaugural writing contest to raise awareness of the issues ...