the sun

I send photographs every now and then to The Sun. It's a magazine unlike any other. The Sun has been very supportive of my work over the years; this month's issue features my fourth cover.

The image is of a little girl named Emma. She's the daughter of a friend of mine. At the time, 1997, Emma was immersed in everything "Beauty and the Beast." She wore Belle clothes, and she insisted that her pals call her Belle. Emma, now a high school senior, was recently accepted to the Chicago Art Institute, where she'll go this fall to study fashion and graphic design!

When the creative director at The Sun receives a submission he likes, he files it away for future use. All these years later, he pulled this picture of Emma out of the archives, and voila! Imagine my surprise when I saw the magazine. And Emma's, too!

I pulled the following description of The Sun from their website. If you are not already a subscriber, you may want to consider it. If you are a photographer, you may want to send them work. There are so few opportunities for the publication of black and white photography anymore. This is a great one.

"The Sun is an independent, ad-free monthly magazine that for more than thirty years has used words and photographs to invoke the splendor and heartache of being human. The Sun celebrates life, but not in a way that ignores its complexity. The personal essays, short stories, interviews, poetry, and photographs that appear in its pages explore the challenges we face and the moments when we rise to meet those challenges.

The Sun publishes the work of emerging and established artists who are striving to be thoughtful and authentic. Writing from The Sun has won the Pushcart Prize, been published in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays, and been broadcast on National Public Radio.

The Sun invites readers to consider an array of political, social, and philosophical ideas and then to join the conversation. Each issue includes a section devoted entirely to writing by readers, who address topics as varied as Telling the Truth, Neighbors, Hiding Places, Second Chances, and Gambling.

From its idealistic, unlikely inception in 1974 to its current incarnation as a nonprofit magazine with more than 70,000 subscribers, The Sun has attempted to marry the personal and political; to honor the genuine and the spiritual; to see what kind of roommates beauty and truth can be; and to show that powerful teaching can be found in the lives of ordinary people."