Submissions Requested

We request submissions in electronic form if possible, with the text pasted into the body of an email (sent to [email protected]), or in text-only format or Mac Word 6.0.1 or lower on a CD mailed to our office (please include hard copy as well). We invite and encourage the inclusion of artwork both related and unrelated to articles or poems (send original photos/art to be scanned, or send electronic files at 200 dpi or greater--tiff for Mac, or original jpg). We welcome your comments and letters.

It's time to come clean. I am guilty as charged of feeling ambivalent about this great creative venture called Talking Leaves, as well as every element involved in its production. Nearly twenty-five years after first taking writing too seriously, I am still in recovery from that period; the process of attempting to transfer my experience of reality into written words is still just as often grueling as liberating. What's more, it is always merely a pale representation of what I actually see, feel, and would like to say. Not only am I a frequently-blocked, reluctant writer, who generally enjoys most other things better than reading or writing--but I'm frequently busy with things that seem much more real to me. And, like the firefighter in I Heart Huckabees, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the absurdity and contradictions inherent in the activities we seem to need to engage in as we go about our lives. In this case, the technological infrastructure, materials, and energy use involved in creating a magazine sometimes seem to be poorly aligned with the spirit of what I am hoping TL conveys in its pages.

I crawl through the corn, like a child
which in a way is who I am in the fields
the roots of who I am--woven in the earth and its rhythms
I watch jam and dolls and trellised tomatoes created from what is grown
I watch how the locals watch the land for rots and weather and time
to tell when it's dry, sick, when we plant, and when we take it from the ground
I watch the weeds wander up the stalks, mirror the crops, grow with passion...displaced plants

I am a child who grew up with fruits and vegetables labeled from two states to the west or across the border
not grown outside our door, covered with our land's dirt
that trickles into our house on boots
engrained permanently on my hands
like the woman I admire greatly with calloused hands, lively spirits, and a deep understanding for survival, work, and simplicity

• Front Cover Photo: by Justin Davis
• Submissions and Upcoming Themes
• Subscriptions and Back Issue Sets
• Lost Valley Educational Center Programs 2005
• Talking Back: Letters to the Editor
• "Notes from the Editor: Transformation" by Chris Roth
• "In My Heart/Eyes..." journal entries and letters from Justin Davis
• "Remembering Justin" by Karly Dillard
• "Thoughts on Death and Dying" by Rick Valley
• "rain" and "Justin" by kaseja Wilder
• Aging in Mountain Painted Corn by Emily Sandall
• "Learning That A Housekeeper Is As Influential As Gandhi" by Mark Isaacs
• "Embracing Change" by Antoinette Cabral
• "Transformation" by Kelly Eskew
• "Cultivating Gratitude" by Mark Isaacs
• "The Democrats Needed--And Need--A Religious/Spiritual Left" by Rabbi Michael Lerner
• "Imagine!: a response to Rabbi Lerner" by The Rev. Nancy Roth
• "Gotta Keep Singing" by Amy Martin
• "Four More Years!" by Rob Bolman
• "Election Insights" by Kim Krichbaum
• "A Post-Election 'Rant'" by TR Kelley
• "By the Waters of Babylon"--CD reviews by Chris Roth
• GaiaTribe: The Enchantment--CD review by Amelia Raymond
• Tree: A Life Story and 365 Lessons for Guitar--book reviews by Chris Roth
• "Between Light & Dark (Haul of Justice 2003) Part Two" by Seven R. Allelle in cahoots with the Heroes Alliance
• Poems by Devon Bonady
• "Words Words Words Words Words!" by Chris Roth

During the last ice age, glacial lobes crept south from the Arctic and leveled much of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. However, they spared an area of about 15,000 square miles, which includes parts of each of those states. This is the Driftless Region. It is characterized by rolling hills and river valleys and sports some very special geological features. About 19,000 years ago, when the ice age temperatures hit their lowest, spring and summer water seeped into small cracks in the limestone or dolomite bedrock, causing it to crack when the water froze and expanded upon winter's return. When the glaciers receded thousands of years later, great flows of glacial meltwater exacerbated these fissures simply by running through them. Limestone is easily erodable by the very slight acid in water. This process created various caverns and crevices and sinkholes that are widespread in the Driftless Region. It is upon this karst topography, as it is called, that algific slopes depend.