winter 2025
Issue No. 22: Safety
Dear Reader,
At the start of work on this issue, “safety” was a concept that, like all concepts, remained intangible. A thought that buzzed and floated in my head. A hodge-podge of events that were both starkly contrasting and haphazardly blurred. Safety is a line drawn in shifting sand, between presence and absence, acknowledgement and invisibility. I wanted to engage with writing that made such dichotomies whole in some way. Tangible.
The pieces that lie within the pages of Issue 22 accomplish this feat. Each contributor, both in the words and images printed among the following pages as well as the ones found online in our digital issue, questions our physical and psychological securities. An interaction with any of these pieces is a choice to confront a topic so tender, and so vulnerably delivered, that whatever thoughts result from this exploration can’t help but find their way into our feelings, our guts, our conversations, and our very futures.
As global citizens, we are all about to embark on a voyage, whether we want to or not, that promises turbulent waters throughout these next few years. For many, something as fragile as safety in one’s skin, in one’s attraction, in one’s community, in one’s self, feels threatened, a bullseye waiting to be hit. Perhaps losing ourselves in our own comings and goings could save us from such fear, but then we know that even this contrived bliss places us face-to-face with our personal demons, wondering whether unknown risks outweigh the known costs. Such is the case with Stonecoast Review which, after its course of over ten years, once again faces a new iteration in this and future issues. The new direction is dangerous, thrilling, worrisome, and exciting.
But, as the adage goes, better to show than tell. We offer you the product of our risk, one taken by students, alumni, and faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program who have gone above and beyond in their work on this issue. We hope the stories contained herein thrive, even among a world of uncertainty.
Sincerely,
Adam Rodriquez-Dunn
Editor-in-Chief, Stonecoast Review
The Night Watcher
I see you: small, upright, and kneeling on the sky-blue crinkles of the knock-off Donald Duck duvet passed down to you from your cousin.
How Hauntings Happen
They met. You don’t lie, hit, or trick, she said. You don’t gamble, he said. Not at all like I’m used to, they thought. They married.
Frosted Glass
The sky was flat. And white. It looked like frosted glass. Adaline had always hated frosted glass.
A Doll’s Fingerprints
At first, my husband Lou was akin to a saint carried in a procession. Back then, I didn’t know how to occupy the dark, especially when it was stretched out.
A Stonecoast Reunion: Aaron Hamburger in Conversation with Shannon Bowring
Stonecoast alumna and former Stonecoast Review Editor-in-Chief Shannon Bowring is the author of The Road to Dalton and the newly released Where the Forest Meets the River. She sat down recently with Stonecoast faculty member Aaron Hamburger, her first mentor in the program, to reflect on her rapid literary trajectory and the high points of their time together as mentor and mentee.
Reaction Time
His cheeks flush. Folding over the plate—a make-your-own, bearing his hand-drawn city skyline—he spits something out.
The Tree Trimmer
He died in a tree at the end of our street. I didn’t know his name, but I learned of his death on my evening walk, when the air still carried the scent of grass clippings and overheated lawnmowers.
This Haunting Red
HELENE
Is she with us now?
LUKE
That’s kind of the whole point. Yeah. She’s always here. Just … lurking out of sight. Throwing shit around when no one’s paying attention.
A Very Nice Fire
GILLIAN
I think we still have a few minutes.
ANNE
I can smell the smoke. It’s musty. Is forest fire smoke different from—
Think of Us
Think of split-pelvis roadkill,
of wild strawberries smaller
than the width of your thumb,
Foreman Lopez
When they came,
Tomás Lopez, the greenhouse foreman, sliced
through the polyethylene siding with pruning shears,
Who, How Many Did He Erase?
Sehr geehrte Frau Dyson, Very honorable Mrs. Dyson
vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage, many thanks for your inquiry.
Imme’s War Years
my Omi Gisela Jung
suitcase stuffed children’s clothes
diapers a wooden toy or two
Ever After
I don’t know how my brother forgave
the doctor who missed the melanoma
on his scalp and tried to freeze it off
before it came back and was everywhere.