Susan Isla Tepper has a new Novel out titled “Hair of a Fallen Angel” from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. A twenty-year writer, she authored 12 published books of fiction and poetry and 7 Stage Plays. Honors include 21 Pushcart Prize Nominations, a win in the Francis Ford Coppola Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2003), Second Place Winner in Story/South Million Writers Award and other awards. Her play ‘The Crooked Heart’ concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022, at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review. A YouTube music video for her new novel: https://youtu.be/W2HVIc4NrqY

BAGGAGE

A hanging star
assumes this burden

who asked for it—

Some exoplanet system
attached itself to
star’s apron strings

this rogue—
orbits star for dear life

freedom now seems
out of the question

While all star ever wanted
was to go it alone
in the great galaxy
accustomed to—

Alexis Rhone Fancher won Best Micro Fiction 2025. She’s published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Verse Daily, The American Journal of Poetry, Plume, Diode, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently EROTIC: New & Selected (NYQ Books), andDUETS (Small Harbor Press) an ekphrastic chapbook written with Virginia poet, Cynthia Atkins. BRAZEN , an erotic, full-length collection, the follow up to EROTIC, published in 2023, again from NYQ. A coffee table book of Alexis’ photographs of Southern California poets will be published by Moon Tide Press in 2025. She and her husband live in the Mojave Desert. www.alexisrhonefancher.com