Backchannels No. 4 / 2020

*“Hidden Cave” by Sandy Coomer (16×16 Clayboard)*

Editor’s Note from Laura Johnson

Have you been wondering how to spend the extra time you have? Perhaps you’re getting really good at online meetings and collaboration. Maybe you’re navigating unemployment forms. Stressing out over the unknowable? Have you found yourself inexplicably sad or scared? Perhaps you are caring for sick loved ones.

We doubt there’s one person who isn’t experiencing some kind of new normal. And that new normal can mean so many things. No matter what it means to you, we want you to know that we are with you.

With that in mind, we are happy to present our Spring 2020 Edition. Our fourth edition. We are proud of the poetry, art, and stories here.

During this time, we want to sincerely encourage you to keep creating. It cannot be said too frequently that it is the arts that connect us despite our distance.

We hope this issue provides you some reading enjoyment, a moment to escape or relax, or connect with literary arts. Although this issue was prepared before the pandemic, it is our sincere hope you find something wonderful that speaks to you.

Be well,
Laura, Leslie & Mary

Jackie Ross Flaum – How We Became Methodists (fiction)

Melanie Faith – You Have Seen Their Faces (poem)

Ewa Mazierska – Love Cycle (fiction)

John Jeffire – What’s That Supposed to Mean? (poem)

Kyle Hemings (art)

Marie O’Shea – Picking up Stitches (essay)

Emmanuel Stephen Ogboh – Gospel (poem)

Doug Van Hooser – Untitled (poem)

Jennifer Frost – A Place to Get Away (fiction)

Denise O’Hagan – Be-mused (poem)

Brittany Wattenbarger – This is My America (poem)