Change Seven

01/07/2024

www.changesevenmag.com

02/04/2024

Change Seven's Spring 2024 issue is now live! We hope you love it!

01/02/2024

And we are live! This has been a long, dark winter, so let our new issue bring you a little light. Please read and share!

05/01/2024

Hey y'all! Change Seven is open for submissions, but only until the end of this month! Send us your best, brightest, weirdest, and share with your friends!

CURRENTLY, ALL SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT (FOLLOWING THE GUIDELINES LISTED BELOW) TO OUR EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] Submission Guidelines We invite submissions of poetry, prose, …

03/10/2023

The new issue of Change Seven is live! Check it out, share it up.

Please feel free to tag yourself or anyone you might recognize in our pages!

Enjoy!

Remembering Bill King

17/07/2023

From Change Seven Poetry Editor, Doug Van Gundy:

The literary community lost a dear friend on Saturday, poet (and poetry advocate) Bill King.

If you knew Bill personally, you know how lucky you are. If you didn’t, let me offer you this brief introduction: Bill taught literature and creative writing to a generation of students at Davis
and Elkins College in Elkins, WV. He was a generous teacher — the grown-up at the front of the classroom who convinced his students that a child-like sense of wonder and excitement about
literature and writing was the only possible response to the miracle of the written word. He was also a keen-eyed editor of the poetry of others — students and friends alike.

He was also the guy in the neighborhood with the greenest thumb, the biggest pumpkins, the sweetest-smelling roses and
the hand-painted sign between his flowerbed and the street that read, “We love our sunshine, please consider parking a little further down the block”.

Bill was all of these people because Bill was a person who believed. Bill believed in the surpassing beauty of a brook trout, the therapeutic power of sinking one’s hands into the soil, the
idea that nothing should be beneath our notice, and no-one should be beneath our empathy.

The novelist Tom Robbins once wrote, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood”. I think Bill believed that, too, and believed it was possible for everyone – his own amazing children
(now grown), the boy whose blood he shed with a thrown stone forty years ago, the child that he himself was and the “grown boy” he has become, and by extension, you and me: everyone. His
optimism and open-heartedness was the engine driving the poems he wrote.

For the last decade, I was fortunate enough to have Bill as my poetry partner-in-crime. What this meant was that most weeks – when our schedules aligned – we got together at one or the other of our homes for coffee and a few hours of careful and compassionate work on each other’s poems. Sometimes we just read to each other and offered suggestions, sometimes we drafted new poems or gave each other assignments. At some point, we usually went fishing, ending the day with a cold beer or two. This good work, shoulder-to-shoulder with this dear man, my brother, was one of the great pleasures and blessings of my life.

I hope you will read “Promise Made in Total Darkness” which first appeared in Change Seven and is reposted here. I also hope you’ll seek out more of Bill’s poetry (his chapbook The Letting
Go is available from Finishing Line Press and his first full-length collection, Bloodroot will be published by Mercer University Press in October). Like the man himself, Bill’s poems are full
of compassion and attention and intelligence. They are grounded in the natural world but establish no boundaries between where we end and the woods begin. They are poems that — to
paraphrase the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney — “come at you sideways, and catch the heart off-guard, and blow it open.”

— Doug Van Gundy, Elkins WV. 17 July 2023.

“PROMISE MADE IN TOTAL DARKNESS” BY BILL KING

When we enter the Sinks—a mile-long gurgle of snow
melt and spring water that splits a high bald then slips
under a ledge of limestone—the summer blues go first,
and then spruce green, until we reach the last ripple

of light on the walls and stop. A swallow flits over,
and you, taller and bearded now, point one long
finger toward a clutch of blind beaks clamoring
above a lip of grass and clay. We wade beneath

them to the edge of the bend, step onto a boulder,
and stare into the black. You click your headlamp
forward but I swivel around to witness the quick
dipping bird flit from the flaming zero of the entrance

and into a swarm of flies. By the time I feel the ancient
wire of need keening across the space between us,
you’ve gone. So I click headlamp forward and step once
again into the shockingly cold water. The stream

narrows and deepens. Sand banks near the cave wall
steepen, then cake to mud. Crouched and low, I touch stone
for balance, try to catch up, but slip then slide waist deep.
How far ahead could he be? I think, and kill the light

to better hear. I call. One beat. Two. Until, "Dad?”
echoes off the opposite wall and I wait for the blade of light.
“We’ll do it,” you say, “but not today.” No hard hats,
no extra lamps, not safe enough, yet, for the long traverse

from blue to blue beneath a field of hooves. Lights off
again, you grip my shoulder and the weight of stone
above lifts like ravens riding updraft above the ridgeline.
“Next summer,” you say, gripping harder until I believe.

02/07/2023

The new Summer issue of Change Seven is live! Check it out.

03/06/2023

Change Seven is open for submissions, y’all! Sends us some stuff!

CURRENTLY, ALL SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT (FOLLOWING THE GUIDELINES LISTED BELOW) TO OUR EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] Submission Guidelines We invite submissions of poetry, prose, …

01/02/2023

The Winter issue of Change Seven is LIVE! We've got the poetry; we've got the fiction; we've got the creative non-fiction and the art. And we have a review of Val Nieman's wonderful book In the Lonely Backwater. Check it out!

And while you're there, notice that our submission period is open for just two more days. The time is now!

03/10/2022

The new issue of Change Seven is live, friends! Grab a cup of pumpkin spiced something and settle in!

Visit the post for more.

30/08/2022

Are you interested in writing a brief book review for Change Seven? If so, please send me a direct message!

We're also looking for a new Book Review editor (Abby Freeland isn't going anywhere, but wants to refocus a bit), someone interested in marketing and social media, and a couple interns.

01/07/2022

The summer issue of Change Seven is live and ready for your viewing pleasure! Not only do we have some really great poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and artwork this month, but we also have an interview and some new work by WV Poet Laureate Marc Harshman, the first of a new podcast series with Sheryl Monks, and a Better Judgement column featuring students from Ann Pancake's class Love, Grief, and Hope: Appalachian Literature of the Environment (some of you might have heard them read their work at ASA in March). It's a big issue, perfect for the first of July.

https://changesevenmag.com/

Editor's Welcome "California Sunset" by Lawrence Bridges Spring 2022 Issue Fiction "Open" by Kailee Bal Rebecca AndemJoseph DucatoMegan LucasMichelle SpencerJosh White Poetry "Untitled" by Max St-Jacques Randy BlytheJames CochranRobert DetmanPeter GriecoMark HammershickWilliam HeathVirginia Laurie N...

04/06/2022

The wait is finally over, and Change Seven is again open for submissions! Remember, though, time is of the essence. Get us your poetry, prose, art, and anything in between by June 30!

CURRENTLY, ALL SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT (FOLLOWING THE GUIDELINES LISTED BELOW) TO OUR EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] Submission Guidelines We invite submissions of poetry, prose, …

02/06/2022

Our submission window is open! June 1-30. Please consider sending us your work!

www.changesevenmag.com

30/04/2022

Today, we’re showcasing some of Kailee Bal's artwork! Head over to our website for the full experience! https://changesevenmag.com/kailee-bal/

Kailee Bal is a painter who is soon to finish a Bachelor's in Fine Arts degree enrolled at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She grew up in Dundalk, Maryland surrounded by run-down strip malls, converted townhouses, and schools or churches fabricated in the boom of the 60s. By her teen years, she moved to Appalachia. West Virginia gave Kailee a striking visual contrast to her childhood outside of Baltimore. Through her time here, she has garnered a great fascination with the histories held within a landscape. These histories—and their visual representation—are what ultimately fuel not only the work she makes as an artist but also her interpretation of the world and desire to unfold hidden facets of the space she inhabits. You can find more of her works on her website at https://kaileebal.wixsite.com/kailee-bal and find her on Instagram .

Kailee Bal is a painter who is soon to finish a Bachelors in Fine Arts degree enrolled at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She grew up in Dundalk, Maryland surrounded by run dow…

16/04/2022

Need a new read? Check out Meagan Lucas' short story, “Glass Houses."

Head to our website now! https://changesevenmag.com/glass-houses-by-meagan-lucas/

Meagan Lucas is the author of the award-winning novel, Songbirds and Stray Dogs. Meagan has published over thirty short stories and essays and they can be found in places like: Santa Fe Writers’ Project, Still: The Journal, MonkeyBicycle, Bull Magazine, and Pithead Chapel. She teaches Creative Writing at Asheville-Buncombe Technical College and is the Editor-in-Chief of Reckon Review. She lives in Western North Carolina with her husband and children.

Em peeled her right eye open. Her left was crusted shut and pressed into the sweaty pillowcase. Clothes and dirty towels covered every horizontal surface and the stationary bike that she told Toya …

08/04/2022

To start off our winter edition, we’re showcasing some of Rachel Coyne's artwork. Head over to our website for the full experience! https://changesevenmag.com/rachel-coyne-4/

Rachel Coyne is a writer and painter. She is the author of several books including the Antigone Rayvnn Chronicles and The Patron Saint of Lost Comfort Lake.

Rachel Coyne is a writer and painter. She is the author of several books including the Antigone Rayvnn Chronicles and The Patron Saint of Lost Comfort Lake.

03/04/2022

The new issue of Change Seven is live, live, live! Spring is here, and we are thrilled to present you with new fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art. Check it out and share with your friends and networks!

Editor's Welcome "California Sunset" by Lawrence Bridges Spring 2022 Issue Fiction "Open" by Kailee Bal Rebecca AndemJoseph DucatoMegan LucasMichelle SpencerJosh White Poetry "Untitled" by Max St-Jacques Randy BlytheJames CochranRobert DetmanPeter GriecoMark HammershickWilliam HeathVirginia Laurie N...

26/03/2022

Need a new read? Check out Jordan Laney's poem, “I resign."

Head to our website now! https://changesevenmag.com/i-resign-by-jordan-laney/Jordan

Laney (Jordan L Laney), Ph.D., is a writer, educator, crafter, and program coordinator in Central Appalachia. You can find her work in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Dinner Bell, and in various trade and academic publications. http://www.jordanlaney.com

18/03/2022

Need a new read? Today, we’re showcasing the short story "Somewhere Between Mars and Jupiter" by Vicki Crawford!

Check it out on our website! https://changesevenmag.com/somewhere-between-mars-and-jupiter-by-vicki-crawford/

Vicki Crawford's writing has appeared in In the Midst: A Covid-19 Anthology, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Crystal Wilkinson Volume XII, Wiley Cash Volume X, Diner Stories: Off the Menu and Appalachian Heritage. She received a 1st place 2017 Pearl S. Buck award for Social Change from West Virginia Writers, 2013 Patricia Boatner First place award in fiction from Tennessee Mountain Writers, third place in the 2012 Emma Bell Miles Prize for Essay from Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University, and 2007 Honorable Mention Denny C. Plattner award for Outstanding Fiction of the Year from Appalachian Heritage.

12/03/2022

Today, we’re showcasing Mary Christine Delea's poem, "Dimensions," from our winter edition!

Head over to our website to check it out! https://changesevenmag.com/dimensions-by-mary-christine-delea/

Mary Christine Delea () is the author of 1 full-length book of poems and 3 chapbooks, and is the recipient of many writing awards. You can find her online at mchristinedelea.com, where she posts weekly poetry prompts, twice-weekly poems by others, and a constantly evolving list of quotations.

04/03/2022

Need a new read? Today, we’re showcasing the short story "Anna Marie" by Lois Spencer!

Check it out on our website! https://changesevenmag.com/anna-marie-by-lois-spencer/

Lois Spencer’s publishing credits include Ohio Teachers Write, Iris, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, The Poorhouse Rag, and Women Speak. She earned two Ohio University degrees, BSED and MSED and her MALL at Marietta College. A memoir, In the Language of My Country (Outskirts Press 2017), highlights a uniquely Appalachian experience.

26/02/2022

Today, we’re showcasing some of Karah Tull’s stunning work, “Shepherd” and “Stardust”!

Head over to our website for the full experience! https://changesevenmag.com/karah-tull-2/

Karah Tull has a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Tennessee. She illustrated the children’s book, Thump by Lisa Soland. She was also the winner of the 2018 writing Fellowship to the Wilma Dykeman Literary Festival in Hot Springs, hosted by Amy Greene. One of her art pieces was also recently featured in the January 2021 issue of the literary magazine, Beyond Words.

18/02/2022

Need a new read? Check out Matthew C. Barron's short story, "What One Means," from our winter edition!

Head to our website now! https://changesevenmag.com/what-one-means-by-matthew-barron/

Matthew C. Barron lives in Vancouver, Canada and has worked as a communications writer and journalist for over a decade. He holds an MA and has attended Fiction workshops at the Banff Centre, Simon Fraser University and other Canadian institutions.

11/02/2022

Need a new read? Check out William Heath's poem, “Key West."

Head to our website now! https://changesevenmag.com/key-west-by-william-heath/

William Heath was born in Youngstown, Ohio, on June 27th, 1942. He attended Hiram College, where he majored in history, was president pro tem of the college senate, president of his fraternity, and captain and most valuable player of the soccer team, receiving eleven varsity letters in four different sports. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies from Case Western Reserve University; his dissertation was a critical study of American novelist John Hawkes. He taught American literature and creative writing at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, and the University of Seville, where he was a Fulbright professor for two years. In 1981 he began teaching at Mount Saint Mary’s University and served as faculty advisor for the college’s award-winning magazine, Lighted Corner; in addition, he edited a national literary magazine, The Monocacy Valley Review, which also won awards for excellence.

04/02/2022

Don't forget to check out our winter edition! Today, we’re showcasing Patty Somlo’s work, “As I Finally Peddled Away”! Head over to our website to check it out: https://changesevenmag.com/as-i-finally-peddled-away-by-patty-somlo/

Patty Somlo's most recent book, Hairway to Heaven Stories, was published by Cherry Castle Publishing, a Black-owned press committed to literary activism. Hairway was a Finalist in the American Fiction Awards and Best Book Awards. Two of Somlo’s previous books, The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), were Finalists in several book contests. www.pattysomlo.com.

28/01/2022

Today, we’re showcasing Eliot Parker’s work, “Table for Two”! Head over to our website to check it out: https://changesevenmag.com/table-for-two-by-eliot-parker/

Eliot Parker is the author of the short story collection SNAPSHOTS, which won the 2020 PenCraft Literary Award and the 2021 Feathered Quill Book Award for Short Story Anthology. His thriller novel, A Knife’s Edge, was an Amazon #1 bestseller. Eliot has received the West Virginia Literary Merit Award for his works and has also been a finalist for the Southern Book Prize in Thriller Writing in 2017 for his novel Fragile Brilliance. He hosts the podcast program, Now Appalachia, which profiles authors, editors, and publishers in the Appalachian region. Eliot teaches writing that the University of Mississippi. Visit his website at http://www.eliotparker.com on Instagram at eliot.parker and on Twitter at .