Nothing invites company more than a gently swaying porch swing on a beautiful day, which makes SWING an aptly named biannual print publication of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and comics, welcoming readers and writers alike. Also aptly named, shares Editor Leigh Anne Couch, as SWING is published by “an incredible literary nonprofit in Nashville called The Porch. Not only do we share a budget and staff, but a spirit of openness and curiosity. The word swing points, prismatically, toward objects and actions and relationships, toward music and influence and ambivalence. It won’t be pinned down, and yet it’s securely attached to The Porch.”

For readers and writers, this connection bodes well in our tumultuous times of publication defunding and rocky start-ups, to which Couch is no newcomer. Formerly at Duke University Press, the Greensboro Review, and the Sewanee Review, she is now a freelance editor, who edits the poetry series Sewanee Poetry at LSU, and has published several poetry collections of her own. “SWING grew out of the ethos of The Porch,” Couch says, “and the longing of its editor to experience the thrill of treasure hunting and mysterious resonances again after a five-year break from working in literary magazines. Its ethos is about connection: the unintended and therefore mysterious dialogue between the poems, stories, and essays within.”

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