Readers can now enjoy the Spring 2023 issue of Months to Years, a beautifully curated online space to share compelling and original works that explore mortality and terminal illness. The newest issue includes work by twenty-two creators, including ten pieces of nonfiction, nine poems, and three visual works. Blair Hurley’s piece, “When Is a Pair of Shoes More Than a Pair of Shoes?” explores the conflicting emotions objects can sometimes trigger when we are in grief. In “Midnight Cowboy,” Erica Driggers delves into the recklessness to which grief drove her. Craig Jackson Schuler’s “Leiomyosarcoma Haiku Sequence” juxtaposes existential horror with the quotidian in reflections on life as a terminal cancer patient.

Readers can access Months To Years in multiple formats. Digital versions—which include an online flip book, a downloadable PDF, and a web-based experience of each creative work—are all available for free. Glossy magazine hard copies can be purchased via third-party vendor Blurb. A small portion of each hard copy sale helps support the publication’s work as a nonprofit.

The Winter 2023 issue of Months To Years marks its five-year publishing anniversary! The editors express, “We are so grateful to you and the community that has grown around Months To Years. When we began, we sought to create both a literary community and a resource for those facing grief. We hope you have found some comfort in what we’ve created.”

This issue brings readers the work of twenty-six creators, consisting of ten pieces of nonfiction, twelve poems, and four visual works. All explore both the universality and unique-to-each-person aspects of death, grief, and loss. Months To Years can be accessed in a variety of digital versions—which include an online flip book, a downloadable PDF, and a web-based experience of each creative work—all available for free. Glossy magazine hard copies can be purchased on the publication’s website via third-party vendor Blurb. A small portion of each hard copy sale helps support the magazine’s work as a nonprofit.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

The newest issue of Months to Years features eleven nonfiction writers, nine poets, and five photographers and artists whose works explore mortality and terminal illness. Two of the nonfiction writers in this issue use basic tools of craft to reveal grief from unique angles. In the “Tree of Judas,” by Jenny Flores, the narrator directly addresses her unnamed spouse as “you” throughout. The effect provides readers with simultaneously intimate and objective perspectives. Kathleen Quigley’s use of the imperative tense in “After Your Mother Dies,” takes readers along on the relentlessly practical tasks that must happen in the immediate aftermath of a death, regardless of the fact we may be consumed by grief. Months To Years‘ Design Director and Photo Editor Barbara Labounta found that “The Empty Chair” by Frances Fish juxtaposes the now-forever empty chair with the cultural imperative to just “be happy.” Poetry Editor Joseph Paulson noted that Liz Grisaru’s poem, “Grief Came in Torn Blue Jeans,” offers a novel take on the unanswerable grief question: how long will this last? These are a just few of the works included in this issue, which readers can access fully online for free.

The online Months to Years Summer 2022 features the creative works of twenty-five writers, poets, photographers, and artists with a range of voices and perspectives. Bev Mondillo Wright remembers her mother’s Italian baking traditions in “Agrodolce, and Other Memories of the Funeral Pan.” Becca Baisch, in “Twin Hearts,” reflects on her husband’s cancer diagnosis soon after the birth of their first child. In “A Story of a Good Mom,” pediatric ICU nurse Hui-wen Sato opens our perspective to the trauma that ICU nurses witness daily. These are just a sample of the compelling works in this issue.

Other contributors include Elizabeth Berman, Harry E. Northup, Greg Turlock, Grace May, Ingrid Blaufarb Hughes, Amanda Julien, Adnan Adam Onart, Janice Lynch Schuster, Ciera Lloyd, Marie Mischel, Gwynn Wills, Michael Salcman, Dara McGarry, Jen Emmerich, John Grey, Victor Larson, Serena Piccoli, Amy Haddad, Vincent J. Tomeo, Beverly Rose Joyce, Carole Geithner, and Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner. A digital version of the Summer 2022 issue is now available on the Months to Years website. The digital flip book, a downloadable PDF, and a web-based experience of each work are available for free. Glossy magazine hard copies can be purchased via Blurb.

It is the mission of Months to Years to “cultivate a beautifully designed online space to share compelling and original nonfiction, poetry, art, and photography that explores mortality and terminal illness.” As Editor Renata K. Louwers writes in this issue’s introduction, “We think things are going along a certain way with certain predictable events. And they are. Until suddenly, they’re not. What can we do besides surrender to the moment, maybe use the Calm app, and hope for the best? Some of us pray, some of us meditate or exercise, and some of us write. Others take photos or create visual art. Art – via the written word or visually – has served as a crucial coping mechanism for humans through the centuries.” We are no different than our ancestors.

Months to Years is an online literary journal for nonfiction, poetry, photography, and art that explores grief, death, and dying. “The arc of grief is long,” writes Editor and Co-Founder Renata Louwers, “but it does bend toward healing.” The newest issue features works by Nicole M. Wolverton, Kara Knickerbocker, Janina Karpinska, Betty Naegele Gundred, Lise Kunkel, Tiffany Amoakohene, Lawrence Bridges, Meg Freer, Aaron Sandberg, Tracey Dean Widelitz, and more. Months to Years can be read online, via visual magazine mode, and can also be purchased in print.

The Summer issue offers work by Ann Willms, Jamie Azevedo, Denise Rue, Melissa Mulvihill, Rebecca Villineau, Jesse Crosson, Justin Teopista Nagundi, Jack Bordnick, David Capps, Christine Andersen, Lawrence Bridges, Jessica Gould, Danny Rebb, Kristina Gibbs, Kathie Giorgio, Guilherme Bergamini, Walter Weinschenk, Karen Storm, Asha Edey, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Months to Years website.