Welcome to Euphony
Welcome to the online version of Euphony Journal, the biannual literary magazine of the University of Chicago. Please feel free to have a look around: use the navigation bar to the right to browse through our web-exclusive content, or refer to the above menu for information about the journal, past issues, and submissions guidelines.
Announcements
Our Spring Issue is on its way and will be released shortly. In the mean time, Euphony has two announcements to share with our readers:
- We’re offering 1-year home delivery of our printed issues, beginning with Winter 2013. With a donation of $20 or more, you’ll receive a copy of both our winter and spring magazine upon publication. Orders can be processed online by clicking here.
- Submissions received after May 1st will be reviewed in the following academic year, beginning in October. We still welcome you to send pieces throughout the summer, but a response may be delayed.
-The Editors
Fiction: “Somebody’s Boy” by Diane Lechleitner
It was a sweltering day. August hot. Carpenter bees hovered in the still air. Flags hung limp and field crickets chirped in the tall dry grass. The boy was farther from home than he should be, more than a mile away, tromping through an unmowed hayfield. A small black dog ran alongside him, tongue drooping in the heat, burrs caught in his fur. (more…)
Spring 2012 Cover Contest
It’s that time of year again. Euphony is preparing to publish its Spring 2012 issue and we’re looking for a cover! We invite anyone who works with photography or any other visual art medium to enter out Spring 2012 Cover contest.
Send your images to euphonyjournal@gmail.com by Friday, April 20th. Each entry should be related to the theme of spring (at least tangentially). You are welcome to submit multiple entries. As the contest name indicates, the selected submission will appear as the cover of our next issue, and the winner will also receive contributor copies. We look forward to reviewing your submissions.
Cheers,
The Editors
Fiction: “How We Play It” by Shelley Stack
We are in a small room in the attic of the church. Most of the time it is used for Bible study, but once a week it’s where the support group meets. We talk, we compare symptoms, we complain about drug reactions, we cry. Like each one of us at this meeting, Sandy has a tumor roosting in her head, tucked in the lining around her brain. She’s been here before, maybe ten or eleven times after her first craniotomy. She’s a mess because she has to have a second. The tumor grew back, bigger than before.
Sandy’s whole name is Sandra Dee. She says not too many people remember that there was once a Sandra Dee who was an actor, an ingenue, a movie star. Sandy is from the generation that knows that, not mine. She’s nervous. She rubs her temple. She fingers the bumps on her forehead. She massages the skin that covers titanium screws around the keyhole in her skull. I broke that habit. I tell her it will be okay. After all, she’s still here. She recovered once. She’ll recover again. At least this time, she knows what she is facing. Not like the first time. The first time, nobody knows what’s coming.
The Winter 2012 issue
The long-anticipated Winter 2012 issue is finally ready in PDF form! Click on the image below to download it. Print copies should be back from the printers’ in a week or so, and will be available around campus.
Please note as well that the submission email for Euphony has been permanently changed to euphonyjournal@gmail.com. Future submissions should be sent to that address rather than to those of the current editors.
Thanks as always for reading!
Important Message from the Editors: New Issue Coming Out Soon
The long-expected winter issue of Euphony will finally be coming out within the next few weeks. Editing and layout are finished, and we are just waiting on the printers to get back to us with the copies. In the meantime, a new piece of short fiction from the issue, “Lynn Somebody”, can be found below.
Thank you for your commitment to Euphony as readers, and we hope you enjoy the new issue!
- The Editors
Sneak Peak from the New Issue: “Lynn Somebody” by Corey Mesler
The first time that I died I didn’t even make it to the gates. I was stopped by an angel with a baton and a can of pepper spray. Move along, he said. Where? I rightly asked him. Back to where you came from, Skippy, he said. I thought the use of ‘Skippy’ unnecessary and condescending but I went back anyway. My wife was asleep in the chair, her head hanging over knitting needles which had dropped from her drowsy hands. She was not attractive in this posture but she was my wife. She woke up. Where have you been, she asked, surreptitiously wiping drool from the corner of her mouth with a colorful, half-finished merkin. I went out for a while, I told her. You wanna sandwich, she asked. I told her I wasn’t hungry and went into the rec room because I felt like a wreck. I found some good strong cord. Next time, I thought, I will get pass that bastard with the pepper spray. (more…)
Second Annual Euphony Cover Contest
We would like to announce the winner of the Second Annual Euphony Cover contest, Irene Hsiao, whose photograph can be seen on the front page of our just published winter issue. Congratulations, Irene!
Thanks to all those of you who submitted entries, and we hope to see your work again when we format the spring issue in a few months.
- The Editors
Welcome to a New Year of Euphony!
Hello, everyone! Euphony is pleased to begin its 12th year of operation by publishing the story “When We Are Gone the Light Is Alone”, by Michael McCanne, as well as the poem “War Games”, by Rob Schultz, both to be found below. We hope these to be just the first of many interesting new pieces of fiction and poetry we can present to you this year.
Our first actual meeting of the year will be on Thursday, October 6th in the Reynolds Club conference room (019) at 7 pm. We look forward to seeing all those interested in participating in our magazine then, and best wishes for the new academic year!
- The Editors
Poetry: “War Games” by Rob Schultz
My brother was the cowboy,
I the Indian. Stumping his
Stick horse in crazy zigzags
He dug up dirt. Once I stabbed
The ground with my knife.
Nicked his ear.
He grew industrious, mowed the lawn
In neat squares, uprooted weeds–wild-
Flowers–built a plywood fort
Under a weathered oak whose branches
I climbed to watch, silent, dead-still.
Papa smiled and patted his burr cut
And called him a diligent boy.
I drew a circle around myself,
Let hair grow down my neck,
And worshiped round wet stones.
Navigating woods by smell of fog,
Watching street lights on the river,
Testing my breath on walks that winter,
I was sure the dead would return.
Shadow that ran across our lawn
And lost itself in the sunset:
I knew it was my mother.
“Just the light,” said my brother.
Drawing his cap gun, he aimed
Straight for the heart.
Mother Earth.
