Dominic Palmer reads "Want Is My Shepherd," and Arlene Tribbia reads "Bolt Down the Universe."

Dominic Palmer is a teacher, writer, and church musician living in Manchester. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in journals including Blue Unicorn, Ekstasis, and EGG+FROG. Dominic and his wife have recently become parents for the first time, so he is quite sleep deprived but full of wonder.

Arlene Tribbia is a writer and artist. Stories of hers have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published widely as well as internationally. She often writes poetry and fiction about otherworldly beings because she's fond of creating characters who work to solve the larger cosmic, comic, and philosophical riddles of the universe.

Grace Donovan reads her short story, "Ave Maria."

Grace Donovan is a fiction writer from Northeast Ohio. She currently resides in the DMV area where she is getting her MFA in fiction writing at George Mason University. Grace loves ice cream, her cat Patsy, the fiber arts, and the Brontë sisters. She often writes about women, queerness, and childhood.

David Allen Sullivan reads his three poems, "Wine Skin Slippages," "Tympanic Membranes," and "This body," from our current Summer issue.

Former Santa Cruz county poet laureate David Allen Sullivan’s books include Strong-Armed Angels, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a book of co-translation with Abbas Kadhim from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not Breakfasted Yet, and Black Ice. He won the Mary Ballard Chapbook poetry prize for Take Wing. Black Butterflies over Baghdad was selected for the Hilary Tham Capital Collection by Tim Seibles, and published by Word Works, while Seed Shell Ash—a book of poems about his Fulbright year teaching in Xi’an, China—is forthcoming from Salmon Press. He teaches at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Review with his students.

Kolya Braun Greiner leads a nature meditation walk, "Contemplation of Creation." Take this episode with you out on a walk, hike, or simply to a quiet spot indoors by a window. This rich offering includes exercises to center your mind, body, and spirit before the walk, as well as seven individual "encounters" with beings in nature. Listen to the guided meditation in entirety (~40 min) or head to our website to navigate each nature contemplation individually. ⁠

Kolya Braun-Greiner, MDiv, is a member of Seekers Church in Washington, DC, and former program coordinator with Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake. She has created curricula and facilitated trainings for people of many faiths to explore connections of their tradition with care for the environment. She is currently working on a book about contemplating nature as a way to foster reverence and healing for Earth.

The Artist as Prophet, the Church as Collective: Pastor & actor Rev. Lisa Cole Smith speaks with our Assistant Interviews Editor Darby Brown on art as a spiritual language, the church's role in supporting artists, and "equipping artists to serve as prophetic critics and imaginative visionaries in the world."

Rev. Lisa Cole Smith is an actor, director, pastor, and creative entrepreneur in the Washington, D.C. area. She is the founding pastor of Convergence: A Creative Community of Faith in Alexandria, VA. She is also the host of the Be. Make. Do. soul|makers podcast, equipping artists to serve as prophetic critics and imaginative visionaries in the world.

The Summer 2024 issue of the journal is here! Tune in for a preview of the new works we'll be featuring this podcast season.

Assistant Interviews Editor Darby Brown speaks with dancers and choreographers Hope Blackburn and Jacob Shoup of Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet. A transcript of the interview is available here.

Hope Blackburn and Jacob Shoup are dancers and choreographers with Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet, a professional dance company of artist-theologians whose goal is to create spaces where art and faith can flourish. Ekklesia’s diverse repertory utilizes a full spectrum of emotional and physical vocabulary while addressing issues such as poverty, inequality, and human suffering.

Rachel shares about her contemplative practice of journaling in "A Journal of Many Colors."

Rachel Berry resides in Richmond, Virginia with her sweet dog Phin. She spends her free time journaling, dancing on her treadmill, and spending time with friends and family.

Cheryl Sadowski reads her essay, "Teachers, Sages, and Serpents," a review of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art's ongoing exhibit, The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas, which is on view in Washington, DC.

Cheryl Sadowski writes about art, books, landscape, and nature. Her essays, reviews, and short fiction have been published in Vita Poetica, The Ekphrastic Review, After the Art, and other publications. She is a 2023 Pushcart nominee and winner of a Grantchester Award by The Orchards Poetry Journal. Cheryl holds a Master of Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Northern Virginia.

Ping Yi Yee reads his poem, "Fortune Center," and Isabel Chenot reads her poem, "pain is not an ark."

Ping Yi Yee writes poetry, travelogues and fiction, and is in public service. His work has appeared in Litro, London Grip, Meniscus, La Piccioletta Barca, and Sideways, among others, and is forthcoming in Poetry Breakfast and Harbor Review. Ping Yi is from Singapore, and has also lived in Boston, MA, and Cambridge, UK.

Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry for as long as she can remember. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood books.