Month: February 2026

Congratulations to three SCR contributors who have released publications in the new year: Matt Cashion with his collection of 12 short stories titled How we Do Things Here, Sarah Domet publishing her second novel, Everything Lost Returns, and Jane Zwart exploring unlikely connections in her newest poetry collection, Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best.

Read more below!

Matt Cashion – How We Do Things Here

How We Do Things Here is a collection of 12 short stories that explores the lives of “slow learners” across the backdrops of Wisconsin, Florida and Georgia. A finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, How We Do Things Here, uses humor, honest absurdity and empathy as the characters try, fail and retry. Cashion’s “Reunions, Atrocious Manners, the Atlanta Airport,” was published in our 2024 Fall Issue.

Purchase How We Do Things Here here.

Sarah Domet – Everything Lost Returns

Stretching across decades, Sarah Domet’s second novel, Everything Lost Returns, is a stardust-laced historical fiction shared between two women who dare to stand tall and shift history in their own ways. Domet’s short fiction piece, “What My Sister Took”, appeared in issue Spring 2019, and we’ve been dazzled ever since.

Purchase Everything Lost Returns here.

Jane Zwart – Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best

Jane Zwart’s newest poetry collection Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best explores connections between unlikely comparisons, ultimately suggesting that it is the power of language that unites us all. Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best uses rich detail and vivid language to transform the ordinary into something profound. Zwart was featured in our Spring 2022 issue for her poem “Poem with a Hole in It,” and will also be featured in our upcoming Spring 2026 issue for her poem “Valentines.”  

Purchase Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best here.

SCR 58.1 Fall 2025 Issue’s cover art, titled A New View, is by artist Jessica Downs and reflects the intricate connection between humans and nature. For Jessica, A New View was brought on by both the public and personal the effects of Hurricane Helene, specifically the damage to the tree line behind her home, which was once a cherished location.

Jessica says that that treasured spot “is now complicated with the lingering memory of unsettled feelings and fear,” due to the national disaster. As you see in our cover art A New View, there are themes of ambiguity, conflict and instability.

However, Jessica was able to use the loss and create what we would later use as our cover. “I rendered the tree line in an idealized manner, using softened light and romanticized color to attract the viewer’s gaze, making it a wanted destination,” she says.

A physical viewpoint from her own bedroom window, curtain-like shapes shift towards root and body-like qualities in the piece.  

“In the wake of that experience, I am left with the many realities that nature can engender, both beauty and danger, peace and destruction, as well as the fleeting space that harbors simultaneous feelings of a connection with, and a removal from, nature.”

Jessica Downs received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing from Utah Valley University in 2024 and is currently an MFA candidate at Clemson University, with an expected graduation date of May 2026. Her work has been exhibited nationally, with recent shows in the Clara M. Lovett Art Museum, the Gertrude Institute of Art and the Utah Valley University Museum of Art. Downs has been the recipient of multiple awards, including Utah Valley University’s Outstanding Student Award for the entire Art and Design Department, was selected as an inaugural participant of the V. Douglas Snow Arts Mentorship Program in Torrey, Utah and was the recipient of the Penland/Clemson University HEPP Scholarship.