Solitude is a part of every life, and from person to person it can mean something different and new, something dour and tragic, something essential and protected, desired, feared. When I first put into words why I felt solitude would make such a fascinating theme for an issue, I had my own unique connotation in mind, my own vision of solitude: the cool, quiet afternoons spent alone writing, puttering about, resting, reading, no need to go out, no need to have anyone in, just staying tucked away because going out can be so damned draining sometimes. I seek days alone. I need days alone. Solitude is an essential companion. And while I know not everyone’s vision of the word “solitude” is the same, and I expected different variations on the tune, the array of interpretations that spilled into our inbox surpassed any of my expectations.
Read the full guest editor letter from James H Duncan
Guest Editor’s Spotlight:
(of use) by Megan Merchant
Titanium Wrench by Jonathan Travelstead
After Noon by Thomas Gillaspy
Rapture of the Deep by CJ Spataro
Campfires by Bridget Clawson
Peter Discovers Wrinkles in his Shadow by Shahé Mankerian
The Trash Man by Andrew Mondry
Dead Mako by Tomas Bird
Reflection by Shanti Weiland
Night Bloom by Samantha Malay
Two Eggs by Rebecca Schumejda
Agates by Benjamin Malay
Tartaruga by Catherine Arra
The Immigrant, 1909 by Kenneth Wolman
When I Bite My Tongue I Think of the Year I Was Addicted to Xanax by Siaara Freeman
No-One Suspects Your Shoulderblades of Wings by Wes Jamison
Wind and Space by Cover Artist Brad G. Garber
Wings Outside the Window: Review of Chloe Honum’s Then Winter by Sonja Johanson
Rachel Nix Interviews April Michelle Bratten
Rachel Nix Interviews James H Duncan
About Our Guest Editor
James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review, a literary magazine celebrating the traveling word. After graduating from Southern Vermont College in Bennington, VT in 2004, he took to the road and traversed the long stretches of highway between Maine and California, Mexico and Montreal, finding moments of respite in book shops, dive bars, cafes, diners, and train stations. Along the way, James worked as a landscaper, drove a snow plow, painted houses, slept through overnight security jobs, toiled as a chef, and held a few handyman jobs before transitioning to wordsmith positions at trade publishers, newspapers, as a writer for American Artist magazine, and as an acquisitions editor for Writer’s Digest Books. Twice nominated for the Best of the Net award and once for the Pushcart Prize for my poetry, James is the author of a dozen collections of poetry and fiction, including What Lies In Wait, Dead City Jazz, Berlin, and The Cards We Keep, and has appeared in such magazines as Drunk Monkeys, Five:2:One, Pulp Modern, Red Fez, Plainsongs, Reed Magazine, The Homestead Review, The Battered Suitcase, San Pedro River Review, Up the Staircase, The Aurorean, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Gutter Eloquence Magazine, among many others. He currently writes columns for The Blue Mountain Review and hosts a monthly poetry read series in Troy, NY alongside poet R.M. Engelhardt called The Troy Poetry Mission. When he’s not freelancing, he’s writing novels, columns, short stories, and poetry. For more, please visit www.jameshduncan.com.
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Alabama with four incredible mammals. Find her poems and prose in recent issues of Juked, DIAGRAM, New South, Mantis, VOLT, Cloudbank, New Orleans Review Online, and others. Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize in Short Fiction. She serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes and President of the Alabama State Poetry Society. More arcana online at