{"id":4889,"date":"2026-03-28T22:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T02:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=4889"},"modified":"2026-03-28T22:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T02:16:16","slug":"the-spring-2026-issue-of-litmosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2026\/03\/28\/the-spring-2026-issue-of-litmosphere\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spring 2026 Issue of Litmosphere\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every spring I look forward to the blooming of the daffodils in our flowerbed and the release of the spring issue of Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit.  <\/em> Both made their appearances right on time. Charlotte Lit announced the publication of the Spring 2026 issue of Litmosphere <\/em>in an email sent out on March 21, and I took a look at it right away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathie Collins, the Editor-in-Chief of Litmosphere<\/em>, assembled an impressive team of readers to judge the submissions by 300 writers from across the country. In the end, they selected work by thirty-four writers for inclusion in the spring issue. The issue is organized into four categories: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and flash. The issue is profusely illustrated by stunning photographs by Charlotte photographer Amy Hart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given my interest in Charlotte\u2019s community of readers and writers, I kept an eye out for work by Charlotte writers. I recognized five of the writers as being from Charlotte, including two of the poets represented in the issue. Alexander Beets, a former student of mine, has a poem in the issue titled \u201cKingdom Come,\u201d an emotionally charged poem that is structured around the lines from the Lord\u2019s Prayer. Mary Alice Dixon\u2019s poem \u201cThe Secret of the Kneading in My Sourdough Bread\u201d also includes a response to another text with religious connotations, but in this case, the text is the\u00a0Loaves & Fishes Cookbook.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>The fiction section includes two short stories by Charlotte writers: \u201cThe Void,\u201d a speculative fiction story by Christopher Braniff; and \u201cFourth Thursday,\u201d a story about a family Thanksgiving dinner by Ebony Morman.\u00a0\u00a0Finally, the nonfiction section features a personal essay titled \u201cRoar\u201d by Betsy West, a former architecture professor at UNC Charlotte. This essay is tied to a memoir that she is writing about her wife\u2019s experiences as a cancer patient and her experiences as a caregiver.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire Spring 2026 issue of Litmosphere<\/em> is available online.  Read the issue here!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I congratulate Kathie and all the good folks at Charlotte Lit on the release of the latest issue of Litmosphere.  <\/em>With the publication of each issue of Litmosphere, <\/em>Charlotte Lit makes an important contribution to the larger literary sphere that I call Storied Charlotte.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Every spring I look forward to the blooming of the daffodils in our flowerbed and the release of the spring issue of Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit.   Both made their appearances right on time. Charlotte Lit announced the publication of the Spring 2026 issue of Litmosphere in an email sent out on March 21, and I took a look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[288,323],"class_list":["post-4889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-charlotte-lit","tag-litmosphere"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4889"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4894,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4889\/revisions\/4894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}