By Patrick Nevins, Managing Editor

One of the joys of being on the staff of a fine literary journal is getting my hands on all the journals with whom we trade subscriptions. It's great to read new work by our contributors, and especially exciting to see one of our own in print.

Rattle's Winter 2007 issue arrived today and instantly caught my eye. The cover features an illustration of a Great War-era Red Cross nurse flanked by old-timey illustrations of human anatomy and advertisements for the bygone curatives "Myra" and "Jersey Cure."  The collage, by Marilyn Stablein, is part of Rattle's tribute to nurses, a section of poems and essays by writers/nurses. Or nurses/writers. Okay, just read the essay "When the Poet Happens to Be a Nurse" by Madeleine Mysko, RN, MA. The special section includes the poem "Nursing Note #8" by Sean Aden Lovelace, RN, BSN, who published the story "Everyone Has a Snake Story" in the Summer/Fall 2006 issue of Sycamore Review.

This issue of Rattle also features the poem "The Dark Miracle of Insomnia" by Jim Daniels.  Daniels published "Poetica No Apologia Arte Kumbaya" in the Summer/Fall 2007 issue of Sycamore Review.

And to Sycamore's great pleasure, Rattle published the poem "Hitch-Hiking" by former Sycamore Review Poetry Editor Gretchen Steele Pratt. Congratulations, Gretchen!