For Issue 10 of Waxing & Waning, the editors went with their standard call: “We want what’s on the fringe. Whatever is deep and true. The moon represents this idea: what is dark, what is brooding, what is wild, what is crescent and changing. We want to feed the beast in you, the one buried beneath layers of manners and anxiety and internet induced abyss, repetition, and relative sameness. Work submitted to Waxing & Waning should be honest and well-executed. It should scream coherently; it should bring experiences and knowledge out of us that we have not seen before. It should rip out our black hearts and put them in front of our eyes. Bring us the work everyone else is afraid of. Bring us the work you’re afraid of. Bring us the work that gets at the trueness frightening you out of the routine. In a world blanketed in monotony—we seek to search outside of ourselves so we can better love, give love, and sacrifice for whatever art could bring. We hope to wax in truth and wane into poetics—to shelter ourselves from reality. To bathe in the light of the moon.”

Stepping up to meet this call for Issue 10 are contributions of poetry by A.N. DeJesus, Esme DeVault, Benjamin Green, Marian Shapiro, Taunja Thomson, and Andrew Walker; fiction by Robert Cramblitt, Max Firehammer, Joseph Morice, Chris Motto, Elizabeth Quirk, Eugene Radice, Douglas Steward, and Rebecca Wood; creative non-fiction by Mackenzie Broderick, Christie Green, Joan Halperin, Melanie Reitzel, and Anne-Christine Strugnell; art by Katie Allcorn, Karyna Aslanova, Gianna Sozzi, and Alice Teeple; a play by Paul Antokolsky; and Editor’s Note by Lance Ümmenhofer.

Waxing & Waning is published under the April Gloaming Publishing imprint, which includes a special focus on Southern literature as well as novels, memoirs, poetry collections, and anthologies. Print copies of Waxing & Waning and the Waxing & Waning Presents Series can be purchased here: www.aprilgloaming.com/shop

Waxing & Waning publishes one print and one online issue per year, along with one special edition contest, the Waxing & Waning Presents Series, that amplifies voices of underrepresented populations.

For the 2022 Blackout Edition, the writers’ prompt was:

“As 2021 draws to a close, George Floyd’s killer behind bars, Breonna Taylor’s still enjoying their time of freedom, and countless other BIPOC people’s deaths still without justice, our humble literary and arts journal is seeking writing and art that exemplifies the BIPOC experience worldwide. In a time of racial unrest, where privileges are being called out and people are being asked to change their behaviors to make the world we live in accountable for its unfairness and injustices, we at Waxing & Waning are looking for creative work that both includes this aspect, but we are also looking for any and all work about the modern BIPOC experience, even outside of race. Give us your poems about sunsets, stories that strike a chord in the human experience, art that screams to be heard. Be deep, true, honest. Here is not where limits lie. We want it all.”

The contributors for The Blackout Edition Prose: Winner Rim Chon, Runner-up Emil Rem, Marian Fredal, Leslie Grover, and Patrice Washington; Poetry: Winner Shamon Williams, Runner-up Glenn Marchand, Biman Roy, and Sabrina Spence; Art: Winner Christina Sayers.

The 2023’s special edition contest will be titled The Pride Edition and will be open to all writers and artists in the LGBTQIA+ population. Submissions for this will open at the beginning of the year.

Waxing & Waning is published under the April Gloaming Publishing imprint, which includes a special focus on Southern literature as well as novels, memoirs, poetry collections, and anthologies. Print copies of Waxing & Waning and the Waxing & Waning Presents Series can be purchased here: www.aprilgloaming.com/shop