Print Issue: LOVE & INTIMACY

LOVE & INTIMACY, April / May 2023, Vol 8, No 2, 100+ pages

This issue is the fourth time in eight years that we’ve published an issue devoted to exposing the scars on our love lives. Often this topic is the unspoken elephant in the room. Our goal in putting forth this issue is to break down the barriers that keep us from talking about and healing these wounds.

Within this new issue of WILDFIRE, you have a collection of stories by people working to understand the transformation that cancer has brought to their closest relationships. The effect of cancer on love and intimacy is far-reaching. Some within these pages share personal accounts of what cancer has laid bare in the bedroom. Others talk about the dissolution of marriages. But, it’s not all sadness! There are stories of finding love at long last, both outside and inside the self. There are stories of fundamental family love, of partners that stay, partners that leave, and all the nuances in between.

Above all, there is hope and beauty.

Contents:

Love Is a poem by Stacy Meisel | Auntie’s Pillows by Julie Ann Chase | Rolling a Six by Amanda R. | I Might Be in Love with All My Friends by Emily J. Rau | The Call a poem by Cara Nash Snyder | The Disappearing Vagina by Tracy Cushing | Intimacy Without Nipples by Lisa Cassenti | Fireflies Around Me by Lianne Twohig | The Elephant in the Room artwork by Sana Hashmat | The Ring That Saved My Life by Silvana Langley | I Thought All Love Was Off the Table by Chiara Riga | I Love You by Miriam Janove | Regaining Feeling and Restoring Intimacy by Jessica de Paz | Cancer Taught Me to Love Myself by Dina Legland | Who Will Pack the Lunches? by Meghan Nathanson | I Worried; You Did Not by T. Renner | While I Am With You a poem by Erin Weiss | For the Love of Cancer: My Triple Negative Journey Into a Zero Negative Life by Jenn Greenhut | The Kittens by Janelle Tellone | The Intruder by Kate Ellis | This or Then by Grace Murphy | Made for Me by Lauren Lopriore | The Day Our Tree Died by Meghan McCallum | Grief and Joy Go Together by Christy Greenleaf

PLUS: Editor’s Note and Tell Your Story Writing Prompt by April Johnson Stearns