80: 2026 Winter Issue 
80: 2026 Passager Winter Issue
Soft cover | 152 pages
The first thing you’ll notice about the issue is the cover art by Harriet Livathinos – a dramatic, even unsettling watercolor and ink abstract titled “Upside Down World.”
Livathinos has said, “Abstraction is my way of dealing with these turbulent times.” The 30 writers in this issue have found their own ways of making sense of the world, with relationships woven into so many of these poems, memoirs and stories.
In “Figs” a self-described loner questions her approach to life after a meaningful encounter with a young cyclist. A middle-aged son understands his father better after a secret outing, in Richard Jacobs’s story “Dandelions.” Robbie Gamble’s poem, “Chloe Calls from College,” lets us in on a mother-daughter conversation grounded in trust and love. And you’ll find so many other pieces in the issue whose emotional underpinnings help to ground you.
poetry
Lana Ayers
Cast Away
Karen Berry
Awakening to the Nashville Skyline
Wendy Carlisle
Burial Customs
Wes Carrington
Crab Legs in Kabul
Nancee Cline
The Old Illuminated Globe
Deborrah Corr
You Wipe the Mist from the Mirror and There Stands Your Mother
Michael Denney
Things One Can Learn from an Older Sister
Joanne Durham
Then & Now
Robbie Gamble
Chloe Calls from College
Richard Krohn
Where’s Grandpa?
Dave Malone
Go-Kart
Ruth Mota
Put Away
Lori Nissley
Black Lab
Louhi Pohjola
Olen hiljainen metsan henki: I am a Quiet Forest Spirit
Beth Brown Preston
Why I Write
Hania Qutub
You Ask Me
Scott Repass
Interstate
Marjorie Sadin
She Hears
Michael Salcman
Someday I Will Be Your Ancestor
Kurt Steinwand
When the Next Storm Will Hit
Christopher Stewart
Drought
fiction
Laura Hulbert
Sacrifice
Tom Ipri
Different Kinds of Scattered Light
Richard Jacobs
Dandelions
Philip Nemec
The Cotton Wood
Peter Slater
Lap 24
Carsten ten Brink
Others, Spies, and Lovers
memoir
Mary Alice Dixon
My Lopsided Hips, Curvy Spine, and Hunger for Hoss Cartwright
Suzanne Finney
Figs
Bill Jones
Some Final Instructions
Executive Director & Design
Christine Drawl
Editor-in-Chief
Rosanne Singer
Senior editor
Mary Azrael
managing editor
Asher Ruck
media relations & podcast producer
Jon Shorr
guest readers
Kathy Briccetti
Joseph Chelius
Margo Davis
Marie McMillan
Karen McPherson
Laurie Pfister
Libby VanBuskirk
Sara Winslow
Editorial interns
Veronica Field
cover painting
“Upside Down World”
Harriet Livathinos
To schedule a reading or related event, please contact editors@passagerbooks.com.