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Past Issues -- Volume I

Issue #4 -- Spring 2002

The Spring Issue of Slow Trains is in full bloom. New features in this issue include "The Slow Trains Ten," wherein we begin to quiz interesting writers immersed in the creative life about the things that matter, like their vices, and Yeats' thought on sex & death. Robert Gibbons is first up, giving us inspired commentary on dreams and poetry and music and his passions in life. Read The Slow Trains Ten: Writers on the Creative Life.

Another new feature in this issue is our first online chapbook, the glorious Soup Sonnets, which are "the way a gasp of excitement sounds, when you take it easy."

New fiction includes the dream-like writing of Thaisa Frank; a tale of Mexican beaches and love reconsidered by Marcy Sheiner; a redefined youthful dictionary by William Dean; a woman's passion for her telescope and the night sky by Adhara Law; and a touching rendition on growing up female in 1960 and discovering just what it is that makes women happy, by David-Matthew Barnes.

Essayists for this issue include Richard Ammon, Tom Sheehan, Derek Jenkins, Marguerite Colson, Blue Wind Kami, and Diane Payne, with subjects ranging from what it's like to by gay in Communist China, to a hospice garden, to the King Biscuit Blues.

In our baseball section, Jeff Beresford-Howe explains what really happens when you stand up against the Yankees, as only a true Oakland A's fan can.

Poetry in the spring issue dances, soars, contemplates, takes a sad turn, visits grandfather's favorite chair, and considers a cyber-sex goddess, but never goes to hell in a handbag, as a character in P.J. Nights' poem might.

Poets include Steve Silberman, John Sweet (who says he "lives with his wife and son in a hideously depressing town in upstate New York, which serves as the backdrop for much of his work"), Karen Mandell, Robert Gibbons, Scott Poole, Brian Turner, P.J. Nights, Janet I. Buck, and Bruce Taylor.

Slow Trains has reached the end of its first year of publication with our 4th quarterly issue, and it has been an absolute delight to work with so many talented contributors from around the globe. Be sure to take a peek at our Contributors List, which will link you back directly to their individual work.

We leave you for this season with the words of one of our favorite modern poets, who charms us each week with his "poetry newsletter," and who I'm sure doesn't really want you to spend too much time on this bright spring day worrying about the question that arises in his jazzy encyclopedic poem, "For Alcaeus" -- "How will they sum up your life in a thousand years in one paragraph?"





Issue #3 -- Winter 2001 - 2002

The Winter Issue for 2001 - 2002 comes to you full of light on this solstice, and brings our most peaceful wishes for your holiday season.

Our Winter Issue travels from Ecuador to Iowa, with great writing on childhood, baseball, faith, the pursuit and loss of love, and a bit of an explanation on what the crocodiles were doing during the "Hangover Sestina."

Our fabulous poets include: P.J. Nights, John Eivaz, Rebecca Lu Kiernan, Lytton Bell, Michael K. Gause, Lawrence Schimel, Itir Toksoz, Pasquale Capocasa, Kathryn Rantala, Tony Gruenewald, and a favorite poet who always brings grace and light to our issues, Robert Gibbons.

With fiction from Patricia Ann McNair, Anne Tourney, Aaron Paulson, Brendan Connell; essays from Brian Peters, Tony Leather, Marcy Sheiner, Dave Gregg, Anthony Puccinelli, David Taylor, Judy Bunce; and music and memories from Jeff Beresford-Howe, William Dean, and Samamtha Capps Emerson, our Winter Issue awaits to warm and entice you.







September 11 Special Section
















Issue #2 -- Fall 2001

Slow Trains presents our new fall issue with the strongest of hope that you and yours are well and safe. We humbly offer a September 11 section, devoted to the "enduring freedom" of speech and art, and will be adding to the voices from around the world as emotions and recovery allows various artists to contribute.

Our fall issue travels from Pere Lachaise in Paris to Isla de Janitzio to a zen monastery in San Francisco, with great writing that covers the hopes and sadnesses of everyday life, along with our writers' passions for the perfect rosetta latte in Seattle and a woman loved too briefly and lost, possibly on purpose.

Our fabulous poets include: Richard Evans, William Sovern, Robert Gibbons, Jessy Randall, Robert R. Cobb, Lawrence Schimel, Magdalena Alagna, Harold Janzen, and Jon Blackstock.

On baseball: Tom Sheehan writes of The Final Summer in a way that reaches into the truth and beauty of baseball, and longing, and was able to bring a tear to this editor's eye more than once.

An Ongoing Journal: Judy Bunce lets us travel with her as she forsakes her real estate career in San Francisco and makes the decision to fully enter the San Francisco Zen Center to become a monk.

With fiction from Isabelle Carruthers, S.A. Augustine, Karl Krausbart, James V. Emanuel, and Marlene Mason; essays from Brian Peters, Ron Porter, Aaron Paulson, William Dean, and Sam Garcia, and finally a swinging review of Bob Dylan's latest album from Jeff Beresford-Howe, the fall issue of Slow Trains is jam-packed with literary delights and awaits your arrival.




Issue #1 -- Summer 2001

Our launch issue includes some great writing, ranging from the love of music to lyrical, prismatic, and sometimes downright funny, poems. From Pamplona to Las Vegas, from baseball to Vietnam, with the humor of pigs in the bedroom and envelopes that speak, the premiere issue of Slow Trains travels into some of the most fascinating and vulnerable territories of our lives.

Poets include: Robert Gibbons, Pasquale Capocasa, Janet I. Buck, John Eivaz, Samantha Cruz, Christopher Locke, Gerald Forshey, and Scott Poole.

Essays are included on gambling from Brian Weiss; on Vietnam from Marc Levy; on the theater of time from Brian Peters, and a tribute to Bob Dylan (as he is now) from Jeff Beresford-Howe.

In memory: John Lee Hooker, as he was to a fan, Phillip Poff.

On baseball: Oona Short takes a fine flight of fancy with Evie's first trip to the ballpark in The Truth About Paradise.

Our fiction section includes Michael Braverman's heartbreaking Paraphernalia; Jamie Joy Gatto's envelopes that speak directly to a writer's paranoia; Ron Porter's memories of a French lost love, in Mari ; a double treat from Jerry G. Erwin with Pig Heaven and Cow Girl, where the animals are sometimes wiser, and more useful, than humans ; Diane Payne's On Track, a poignant tale of growing up on all sides of the tracks; and finally, a whimsical vision of dancing with the streets.


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