Meet Our New Intern: Rachel Bulman

In violation of the modern educational system, I learned to read before I could talk, apparently finding the written word far more interesting than trivial things like sleeping or learning to walk. I haven’t really stopped since. From Austen to Orwell, I know first-hand the power a good book has on a willing reader. Most importantly, I know the responsibility of publishers to curate and share good books. It’s a power that should be used to build communities and break down barriers. Publishers like Sundress Publications have all of the responsibility and none of the corporate funding – which is why what they do is so essential.

Another introduction for me might begin: ‘Hello, my name is Rachel and I am a writer’, which, though sensible (and a touch dry), seems like a strange thing to say without a novel to my name or a serious book deal, but is true, nonetheless. When I was seven and wrote a story about a tiger making friends with a princess, I was just as much a writer as I am now. It’s something that has taken me a long time to come to terms with, but if you write, that makes you a writer. Simple as that.

Since the story I wrote at seven years old, which I must confess was heavily inspired by Aladdin (1992), I’ve written a lot more. Lots during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and even more when I studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Exeter in the south of England. Writing is something that brings clarity and relief for me, and as far as I have experienced it, brings people together. Although we were no Inklings, I took a great amount of pleasure meeting with friends to plot and panic and write together – a practice we keep up to this day, only now it spans three continents and happens every third month.

Over the last few years, I have discovered I do my best writing when I am also doing lots of reading. Surprising no one, the two complement each other enormously well. As a result, I’ve been published in a number of magazines and anthologies, most significantly in the ENIGMA Literary Journal, where I also served as an editor for a few years while I was at university. It was here I realised how wonderful the impact of an editor can be – seeing a piece growing alongside its writer is enormously rewarding. Similarly, I co-edited and wrote a non-fiction text called UNESCO Cities of Literature during my MA, highlighting just a fraction of all the work UNESCO designated cities have done in recent years to promote literature. Just six months after the publication of the edition, it was wonderful to welcome ten new cities to the global network! Better still to recognise that the new designations reflect a less Eurocentric approach to literature, ushering in a more diverse and brilliant cohort of literary cities.

At the beginning of this year, I started a review page on Instagram as I try to explore other avenues of sharing literature with others. I take a certain enjoyment in reading books I have never heard of before, so please, if you have an obscure book from childhood or that you found in a local library, I would love to hear about it.

For me, interning for Sundress is another step in a lifetime of joyful reading, and I couldn’t be happier to carry this responsibility and share the words of such a talented and diverse cohort of authors. Here’s to a wonderful next six months!

Rachel Bulman looks left over the wide, blue Gard-Vaucluse river on a bright summer afternoon. 

Rachel Bulman (she/her) holds a BA in English and Creative Writing as well as an MA in Publishing from the University of Exeter, specialising in interactive and children’s fiction. Her written work, from non-fiction to poetry, script and prose, has appeared in Wolf Grove Media’s The Book of Choices, Velvet Fields, and Exeposé, among others. Find her eclectic portfolio on Instagram @worm.can.read, through her online portfolio, or ask the bridge troll who taught him his riddles three.

An Interview with Dani Janae, Author of Hound Triptych

Upon the release of her debut poetry collection, Hound Triptych, Dani Janae spoke with Sundress Publications editorial intern Reina Maiden-Navarro. Here, they discussed navigating the intersections of girlhood and motherhood as a Black adoptee, the legacies of trauma, loss, and grief, the process of rebuilding and reclaiming chosen identities, and the importance of love and forgiveness.

Reina Maiden-Navarro: Why did you choose to separate your collection into three sections, a “triptych”? How is it significant to the construction of a larger narrative?

Dani Janae: I’m not one to necessarily believe in numerology but the number three kept coming up as I was writing the poems in this book. There are three “Go Ask” poems and three sonnets. My mother’s birthday is in the third month of the year. Things just kept coming to me in threes, and I took that as a sign. I also think there was a temptation to divide the book into beginning, middle, and end, which I resisted. The three parts aren’t totally chronological, they are more divided by a theme.

The first section of the book is where I introduce the hound narrative. The second part is about inhabiting that narrative, and the third part seeks to deconstruct it.

RMN: Can you speak to the significance of hounds in your work?

DJ: When I realized that the poems I was writing were becoming a book, I started thinking about the title more seriously. I knew I wanted it to be “X Triptych” but thought “Dog Triptych” seemed lacking in specificity and didn’t quite capture the theme. Hound came to me as I was working through the physical search for my mother. Hounds are hunting dogs, they have sharp senses, some sight, some smell. In a sense, I was hunting for my mother, hunting for the truth of what her life was like and why she gave me up. Furthermore, because I had never met her, never seen her, my sense of her was entirely constructed out of myth. I imagined what she looked like, what her voice sounded like, what she would say when we met. I had built a whole sensory world for her by the time I found out her name.

Hounds are also quite physically striking, and one of the things I learned about my mother when looking for her was that she was a striking woman with “expressive eyes” as the poem in the book documents.

I spent my childhood hoping that I looked like her, that my features were hers, that I would grow into the beauty I imagined she was known for. This also informed how hounds came into the poems.

RMN: How does sobriety affect your approach to the subject of addiction?

DJ: First and most obvious is that if I wasn’t sober, I wouldn’t have been able to write these poems. I started writing loosely about my mother in college, when I first started looking for her. Those poems were frantic and often veered off topic because my heart was broken and I couldn’t face what I perceived as her rejecting me. I also was becoming a career drunk in college, and I was less concerned about writing beautiful poems and more concerned about my next high.

Being in active addiction takes a lot from you. Not only physically but mentally; I truly don’t think I had the mental or emotional capacity to write about my addiction while I was in the muck of it.

Secondly, I personally am firmly in the camp of only writing about addiction if you have experienced it yourself. If someone loves an addict, I think they can write about just that, but I wouldn’t want to read a book about addiction from a non-addict.

In the book, I say the corner tenet of my sobriety now is forgiveness, and forgiveness plays a big part in the book overall. When I was in active addiction, I wasn’t able to forgive anyone. Not my mother, not even myself. I was hellbent on the “get-back.” On suffering and making my pain plain to those around me. I wanted my mother to see how her giving me up for adoption had hurt me when I started searching for her at 18. When I revisited my search as a sober 31-year-old, I came to it with grace.

I also talk about grace a lot in the book. I think I had to give my mother grace in order to see her and myself clearly. I couldn’t hold on to the narrative that I had been abandoned without love any longer if I wanted to open my heart to knowing who she was.

RMN: How do naming dedications, individual poems, and a collection serve as a reclamation of chosen identity?

DJ: Wow this is a great question. My personal experience (and some readers may also have this experience) was one of having my identity imposed upon me. My adoptive mother told me who I was, and what she had to say was mostly negative. I was worthless, ugly, too emotional, too much in general.

In the poem “Call” I discuss this, how even despite years and distance, I still struggled to see myself outside of her vision of me. Writing this book brought me closer to full and flawed woman that was my biological mother, which brought me closer to the self I have been building all these years.

I had to teach my inner monologue to approach the self with loving kindness, and part of that is also having a spiritual life. I don’t believe in a Christian God, or any capital G God of organized religion anymore, but I do believe in a guiding force, a light, that moves through me. That light was covered when I was a child, and this book, this life I’ve built has kind of served as a great uncovering.

I also have had so many lovely people who have reflected back to me a loved version of myself. My brothers David and Dakota, my best friend Shanai, my friends and writing group members Cale and Diehl. If I didn’t have these things I would still be the abused, admonished child I knew growing up. She still lives inside of me, I don’t think that hurt will ever disappear, but I’ve become someone else around her, a protective force.

RMN: The poem “To Unlearn the Narrative of the Dog” has a direct address to the reader. What are you hoping to have readers contend with by giving them a name?

DJ: This is linked to question four, but I brought the reader into the poem at that moment because it is easy for me to let other people tell me who I am. In a sense, to perform for others approval and recognition. In “Adoptee Log #9” I talk about decentering the mother, and while having grace and respect for my mother was important for me and this book, I had to also let go of the idea that only she could tell me who I am.

“To Unlearn the Narrative of the Dog” is about just that, literally piecing myself together without worrying about how my mothers or my readers would perceive me.

RMN: What is the significance of Rita Dove as an influence in your writing, namely in Section III?

DJ: What Rita Dove does in her poems “Adolescences I” and “II” is capture this essence of not just girlhood, but Black girlhood, that I also wanted to bring into my work. I wanted to be able to do that without big red arrows pointing saying “THIS POEM IS ABOUT RACE.” I do have poems that are more directly about race in the book, but I loved the subtlety with which Dove approaches the subject in her poems.

I started reading her in college, specifically around the time I was writing my senior thesis, and I was immediately smitten and in awe of her work. The sharpness and expansiveness of the language she uses, especially in II were so important and influential for me.

RMN: How does the use of white space serve as its own vessel for communication and a reverberation of the theme of absence throughout your collection?

DJ: Having spent years not knowing my mother was, in a sense, a white space that permeated throughout my life. Sometimes it was apt to fill that white space with words, other times I had to let the starkness, the silence, speak for itself.

When I was little, I had a recurring dream where my biological mother showed up at my childhood home and demanded my adoptive mother unhand me and return me to my rightful home. In the dream, my mothers are yelling at each other, and I open my mouth, and nothing comes out.

The white space is this too, the things I could not say and the things I never said. To either of my mothers. I never got to tell Sarah I love her. I never got to tell my mom that raised me how she broke my heart. So much lives in that. It was important for me stylistically and emotionally to have that white space be a part of the collection.

RMN: Section II is entirely comprised of poems entitled “Adoptee Log [#1-10].” Tell us about your development in contending with the intersections of girlhood and motherhood as an adoptee.

DJ: For me, this section was vital. I wanted to describe the day to day yearning I experienced as a daughter, while also working through my thoughts on what it meant to be a mother. I am not a mother myself, but I knew I had to say what I had to say, and then leave room for compassion to flow through. I do have poems that express frustration, sadness, and heartache, but at the center of those poems too is a profound love for my mother, and an understanding of the difficulty in the decision she made.

Through therapy, I learned that adoptees especially tend to be more preoccupied with the mother figure than the father. There is a biological reasoning for this but also a social one. Mothers tend to take on most of the work of child rearing. There’s a popular video segment on a late-night television program where street interviewers ask fathers “who is your child’s pediatrician?” “What is the name of your daughter’s best friend?” These fathers can’t answer or get the answer wildly incorrect, even birthdays or other important milestones in a child’s life. Then, the mother comes on screen and gets a perfect score.

Yes, these interviews are cherry-picked and edited, but they also speak to something true. We put the brunt of the weight on mothers to know it all and do it all. So, when I was searching for my mother, I put the onus on her to heal the wounds that had been foisted upon me in my girlhood. This, of course, was very unfair. A big part of the collection is coming to admit that to myself and starting to see my mother as a full, realized human being who is not just the woman who gave birth to me, then let me go.

RMN: If your birth mother could read one poem from this collection, which one would you want it to be and why?

DJ: “Poem as Motherless” not only because it is a direct address, but also because it is a true love poem for her. It doesn’t paint me in this bucolic light either, I admit to blaming her for things that just aren’t her fault, but I admit to it, and this poem in a way, serves as an apology.

The love I have for her is not uncomplicated, but it drives this collection. I wouldn’t be on this earth if it wasn’t for her. I wouldn’t be alive. Despite the abuse I experienced as a girl, I still grew up in a place where I always had clean clothes, food, a roof over my head. She made a sacrifice for what she thought was best for me, and who is to say if it was truly best, but I believe her decision was heart-forward and selfless, and I have to thank her for that.

There was some discussion with my editor about changing the last poem in the book, but I really fought for the last poem to stay in its place. I wanted the last thing in the book to be a gesture toward my mother, not a meditation on myself or addiction or abuse. I wanted to have one final declaration of love.

Hound Triptych is available to order now!

Dani Janae is a Black lesbian poet and journalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has been published by Longleaf Review, SWWIM, RHINO Poetry, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among others. She posts on Substack at “No Skips,” “Fig Widow,” and “Ask a Queer Doctor,” and she can be found at https://danijanae.com/.

A white woman is standing in front of a tree in a grove. She has short, dark red hair. She is wearing a black dress with white trim and a blue graduation stole with the words "UC Irvine" embroidered on it with gold thread.

Reina Maiden-Navarro is an editor, writer, and photographer. She recently graduated from UC Irvine with a degree in Film & Media Studies and a minor in Creative Writing, cum laude. She also works as an Editor at Prompt and an Outreach Coordinator at Bookstr. If she is not reading or writing, she can be found traveling, painting, or baking cookies.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Maybe the Body by Asa Drake

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Maybe the Body by Asa Drake (Tin House 2026).


Afternoon in the Cemetery

                 under loblolly pines

I don’t believe in hallowed ground, but I like that border control
doesn’t come here. It’s smelling season. I’m staring
at the wide eagles’ nest because I would like an illegal feather,
when a woman’s dog growls at my arrangement
low in the grasses. She says her dog never barks, so I avert my eyes
from the fledglings above. Like a secret
just past the blackberries’ five-pointed stars, I could love this place
if I didn’t know the reason for it.

                    under cherry blossoms

I’m a tourist. I debate whether the citizen star
on my ID is sufficient so close to the border.
In the end, I don’t board a ferry to cross. I touch the end
of my hairpin to feel secured by what’s expensive. I text a loved one
on the other end of the sound. Maybe I write an apology,
though to whom, it’s too early to tell. To a friend, I admit,
given a second opportunity I’d record all my English
in italics. A formal decentering to ensure my mother’s speech
is roman. The alternative document would offer
a shared experience, a poem that’s of the world
but a world that’s better for me. Of course you don’t love it.



                    under coastal redwoods

Perhaps a poem can be better than the world
because of my obsessions. On weekends, after Mom bought
her first house, we’d watch The Crow, a movie in which the star
is Asian and white. My mother liked to point out which characters
I could grow into. “Not the Crow,” she’d tell me
after Brandon Lee’s last scene. I wonder how it is for others.
Mothers say, come visit, lovers say
come home, enemies say, go home. The line I remember
from the movie is not central to the story.



Asa Drake (she/her) is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems are published or forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, and Sewanee Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Maybe the Body by Asa Drake

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Maybe the Body by Asa Drake (Tin House 2026).


To Someone Who’s Heard, I Love You, Too Many Times

Your friend explains having been in a room
filled with other people who, like you and your friend,
collect words from parents. The words
[                                                                ]
don’t come together into a language.
And the person on the stage expressed deep shame
for a project where she had tried to speak
but misspoke in a language
for which she had no teacher.
This is what you most fear. In one language,
you are the perpetual infant. You point to the moon
and call it payneta moon, once every 28 days.
Nanay gave you what is specific. Not the general
name for the moon [                 ].
                                                        Everything you say
timing and intimacy has shaped.

Asa Drake (she/her) is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems are published or forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, and Sewanee Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Maybe the Body by Asa Drake

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Maybe the Body by Asa Drake (Tin House 2026).


The World Begs for Transcription

My mother leaves a voicemail asking I work back-of-house when I can.

I haven’t had a parent call afraid for my safety since 9/11.

Close to where I live, a couple books a hotel, purchases paramilitary gear, pays
off a credit card, in order to hinder my life. The news refrains from describing
the white couple’s terrorist act at the Capitol. I wonder if it’s not a question of
the act but who feels it. Who has a good way to respond?

I’m going to distract you.

Nanay calls on Monday night to try out her new tablet. She alternates between
I’m beautiful and you’re beautiful. Beauty, meaning a pair.

We admit to gaining weight, and Ate Bernnie congratulates my well attended
Zoom meeting.

(Lots of repetition.)

Nanay wants to show that her hair is all white.

I’ve yet to find a term of self-reference that does not equate to ornament.





Someone I don’t know mispronounces my name—worse—someone who would
like to know me.

Be good and kind, they say, or else. But I am not good or kind or else I would not
look for retribution.

Cardinals and squirrels before summer when I don’t want to be responsible for
their nests.

On a podcast, a poet I love names the many accountability groups she’s joined
this year. I am jealous of her self-discipline and the word accountability, used as
a term of self-discipline, but that is not what I want.

I insist on protection. Pick up an omen the last night of the year. Foremost sin
in my mind, the one not worth confessing.

Beloved, if it is the year of the comet, do not look for the comet.

I stay so long in one place my hair lines the nests. I don’t know how to hold
down what I love, but I’ve eaten so much fruit trying to lure the animal to me.

I go to the grocery store. Two men open the door for me.

I cannot stop them.

Asa Drake (she/her) is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems are published or forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, and Sewanee Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Maybe the Body by Asa Drake

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Maybe the Body by Asa Drake (Tin House 2026).


Tonight, a Woman

Asked not to put language in the garden

                                                                                       I could not.

Tonight, a CNN reporter was arrested when an officer refused to hear her
credentials. He repeatedly asked, Do you speak

                                                                                English. Now I fear I may be told I

speak nothing.

              Ignore everything I have said about care.


                                                                              I say it twice to negate.
   

I have heard someone I love speak around someone I love, like English is a sieve
for catching one another’s cruelty.

                              Catch and hold.

If people keep saying they love me





                                                                                                    maybe they love me

                                           and don’t know what else to say.

The earth is an emotional wreck.

                                                                           The earth is Eden + sin.

We are alive in an era of firsts we don’t recognize. A co-worker takes an ugly
photo of me in my favorite dress, and I have no redemption arc.


                                                Only a lovely speech pattern.
 

I had tried to say something about the garden. I had tried to say something
about myself.

                                         Plants that grow like weeds are popular cultivars.

We know the aftermath.

Asa Drake (she/her) is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems are published or forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, and Sewanee Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.


Sundress Reads: Review of My Arabic Breakfast

A cover of a book, showing the top half of a silver, circular, engraved platter with various Levantine foods such as mint tea, zaatar, and olives arranged in a circle. A plate of sunny-side-up eggs sit in the middle. The title, "My Arabic Breakfast," is written in Arabic and English letters against a bright yellow background. The author and illustrators' names, Yasmeen Fakhereddin and Noor Naqaweh is written beneath in white Arabic letters.

Written by Palestinian-Canadian educator, Yasmeen Fakhereddin, and illustrated by Syrian-Palestinian artist, Noor Naqaweh, My Arabic Breakfast (Zingo Ringo, 2024) is a bilingual board book that introduces young learners to Arabic. With vibrant illustrations of Levantine breakfast foods, and accompanied by English translations and pronunciation guides, this book helps children build their vocabulary, pattern recognition, and numeracy skills, all while spotlighting Palestinian culture.

Naqaweh’s hand-drawn illustrations make My Arabic Breakfast a visual feast for the eyes. From the first page, readers are welcomed to the dining table teeming with flavorful Levantine dishes. Each food item is drawn in mouthwatering detail—sesame seed-coated falafel, labneh cheese balls doused in olive oil, and mini filled flatbreads with steam wafting off them. The liveliness of the dining room and the warm, bright colors throughout the book remind readers of home, the feeling that they have a seat at the table. Another highlight of My Arabic Breakfast is phonetic Arabic spellings and English translations, which make bilingual learning easy. Many immigrant and interracial families hope that their children stay connected to their cultural heritage. Fakhereddin, as a Palestinian-Canadian and parent herself, understands this, and so aims to build children’s confidence in Arabic while introducing bits of Levantine culture in a way that remains accessible to children.

The first, full-page spread inside My Arabic Breakfast. It shows a yellow dining room, three brown dining chairs, and a dining table with a variety of Levantine and Palestinian foods. The left-hand side contains a jar of jam, a plate of cucumber and tomato slices, a bowl of olives, a basket of pita bread, twin bowls of zaatar and olive oil, bowls of fava bean foul, and a platter of falafels. In the center are a plate of mini filled pitas on an Al-Khalili pottery plate, a pan of six sunny-side-up eggs, salt and pepper shakers, an assorted platter of cheese, and a bowl of labneh cheese submerged in olive oil. On the right side of the table is a red tea kettle with steam coming out of the spout, a sugar bowl and plate of mint leaves, five glasses of mint tea, a plate with donut-shaped date-filled cookies, a plate of watermelon slices, and a tissue box with a tatreez embroidered cover. On the wall hangs a painting of a green olive branch laden with black olives. The bottom of the page says "welcome" in English on the left side and "ah-lan wa sah-lan" in Arabic on the right.

What makes My Arabic Breakfast unique is that it is entirely Palestinian-made, from the author and illustrator to the publisher, Zingo Ringo Books. Throughout the book, Fakhereddin and Naqaweh highlight their Palestinian roots through small artistic details. The opening spread, for instance, depicts a platter of watermelon slices on the table and a painting of an olive branch, two enduring symbols that represent the cultural identity of Palestinians and the connection to their land. The plate with the mini flatbreads on page 4, and the bowls of zaatar and olive oil on page 7 feature Palestinian pottery designs from the Al Khalil region, while page 8 showcases a traditional Palestinian date-filled cookie. On the last page, where all the food has been eaten, there remains on the table a tissue box with tatreez (embroidery), a traditional Palestinian craft. The book ends with one final, subtle detail—a painting with the word sahteen (“bon appetit”) in Levantine Arabic. Food, the practices and habits around food, hold personal and cultural significance. It is a means for communities to retain their cultural identity. My Arabic Breakfast is not only a language-learning book, but also a love letter to Palestine: culture and people. Through the recurring motifs of Palestinian foods and traditions, Fakhereddin and Naqaweh convey a message of resilience and pride in their heritage. In this way, My Arabic Breakfast is a message to the children of Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora, encouraging future generations to remember and celebrate their identity.

My Arabic Breakfast stands out because it is a board book primarily geared towards bilingual children from the Arabic-speaking diaspora. The significance of Fakhereddin and Naqaweh’s book lies in the mirror it holds up for children of Palestinian and Levantine origin, reflecting their heritage, cultural practices, and everyday experiences, and affirming their sense of identity and belonging. A persistent issue in mainstream English-language children’s books is the misrepresentation and underrepresentation of people of color, Arabs in particular. Even in recent years, the number of children’s stories written by or about Arabs remains very limited. For this reason, My Arabic Breakfast is a meaningful contribution to children’s literature. They can practice recognizing and naming foods from home and learn basic numbers and words in both Arabic and English. At the same time, the visuals render the learning experience all the more engaging.

A spread of two pages inside My Arabic Breakfast. The left page has a purple background with illustrations of three falafels in the center. The left-hand side has the number 3 at the top and the word "falafel" at the bottom in English. The right-hand side has the corresponding Arabic numerals and words. The right page has The right side is a reddish-pink background with four bowls of fava bean foul in the center. The left-hand side has the number 4 at the top and the word "foul" in English, with the corresponding numeral and word in Arabic on the right side.

My Arabic Breakfast is also a delightful read for non-Arabic speakers, helping them develop cultural awareness and appreciation for diverse communities. The book paints an authentic picture of Levantine culture and cuisine, allowing for an immersive educational experience. Children can discover a wide variety of dishes—zaatar, shai bil nana (mint tea), and fava bean foul, among others—and also learn Arabic words and numerals. As I leafed through the book, I found myself captivated by the vivid artwork and the elegance of Arabic script. With each page, my fingers traced the words, following the English pronunciation closely. Even as an adult reader, My Arabic Breakfast offered me an introduction to the richness of Palestinian and Levantine culture. Reading this book reminded me of the food and cultural practices in my own family as a Bangladeshi-American Muslim, of the joy of visiting friends and sharing traditional foods, and of the deep sense of togetherness. Moreover, reading My Arabic Breakfast made me reflect on the importance of diverse and inclusive books for children. Growing up in a small town in the American South, I was always curious about my heritage and mother tongue. At school, opportunities to explore this curiosity were rare. Thus, the presence of books like My Arabic Breakfast in libraries and bookstores is essential. They encourage children to learn about and cherish their identities. Addressed to young learners, My Arabic Breakfast is all about celebrating and maintaining one’s roots.

A South Asian woman smiling and sitting on a green couch. She has black hair, half lying over her right shoulder and half down her back, and is wearing a wine-red turtleneck. Behind her are two closed window curtains, one light blue and floral print, and the other solid teal.

Tara Rahman (she/her) is a Sundress editorial intern with a BA in English Language and Literature from Smith College and an MSc in Global Development from SOAS, University of London. She is also a recent graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course in Oxford, UK. With a strong interest in culture, identity, and global history, her personal writing often focuses on intersectionality and the untold stories and experiences of marginalized communities. In her free time, she enjoys reading literary and YA fiction, watching anime, and spending time with her tripod cat, Tuntuni.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Maybe the Body by Asa Drake

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Maybe the Body by Asa Drake (Tin House 2026).

2

I want to go home, which is a concession—home isn’t here. The opposite of
possibility, to give up possession. I often think I am losing ground.

When the passport office closes, I cut my hair.

The passport office opens. I grow it out again.

It is possible what belongs to me doesn’t dictate where I belong.

Once, at the beginning of an important friendship, we pointed at our flag and
joked, Can either of us write anything sincere about that?1




____________

1 (Attempt)

A flag can be colorized as a second flag to represent the smallest
faction of people or to celebrate a holiday or to make a statement
—and the flag is still recognizable but now means the United States
during Breast Cancer Awareness Month or the United States
of Police Officers or the United Colonized State as Mark Twain
once described, proposing a flag for my mother’s country,
We can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted
black & the stars replaced by the skull & crossbones.
Of course, my country is my mother’s country. She insists, love both!

Asa Drake (she/her) is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems are published or forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, and Sewanee Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.


Creative Writing Workshop at Ijams Nature Center

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is pleased to announce that we will be hosting a generative creative writing workshop celebrating Earth Day and mental health awareness on April 25, 2026, partnered with Ijams Nature Center and hosted by Shelby Hansen. This two-hour event will be hosted at the Ijams Nature Center Glass Room in the Visitor Center from 2-4pm. Participants will have the opportunity to explore nature, learn about local plants and wildlife in East Tennessee, and reflect inwardly on their own connection to the natural world followed by a quick hike and open mic session.

The event will be open to writers of all backgrounds, experiences, and skill levels, and all exploration and movement is ADA accessible. While the event itself is free, parking at Ijams Nature Center costs $5.00. All proceeds go back to operation and conservation efforts for the organization.

Shelby Hansen (she/her) is a creative writer and self-proclaimed fantasy maestro hailing from the northern plains of Texas. She recently graduated from the University of Tennessee’s English program with a focus in Literature and Creative Writing, where she won several awards for her fiction. Her writing often focuses on womanhood, identity, and the reclamation of the self through a speculative lens. This is reflected in her debut novel, which she hopes to publish soon. When she is not writing or teaching today’s youth, she enjoys reading, crocheting, swimming, and spending time with her two cats, Stella and Gemma.

An image of a young blonde woman sitting down, arms to the side, posing for the camera. She is smiling, wearing a white top, blue jeans, and a light blue button up.

Ijams Nature Center is a nonprofit environmental education center that relies on member and donor support. Funding helps maintain the more than 318 acres of protected land managed by the nature center as well as allows Ijams to offer low-cost education programs so that more people can take part in them. Their mission is to encourage stewardship of the natural world by providing an urban greenspace for people to learn about and enjoy the outdoors through engaging experiences.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Roadmap: A Choreopoem by Monica Prince

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is an excerpt from Roadmap: A Choreopoem by Monica Prince (Santa Fe Writer’s Project 2023).

Different

AISA
No.
My time, my love, my body—they’re all
just as valuable as yours, magnificent as you may be.
I won’t keep saying yes, stay loyal,
remain a wound for your salty tears.
Just because the world beats you
for being Black doesn’t mean
you get to control me for being woman.

Aisa grabs Dorian’s hand and
places it around her throat.

AISA (snarling)
You want to control someone?

Aisa sinks to her knees with Dorian’s
hand still wrapped around her throat.

AISA
Fine.
But don’t expect love.
Don’t expect me to stick around,
to upgrade you while you drain me.
Don’t expect surrender to grow
where you’ve planted resentment.

Aisa tightens Dorian’s grip.

AISA (snarling)
I am not a game, Dorian.
Don’t. Play. Me.

Monica Prince (she/her) serves as an Associate Professor of Activist and Performance Writing at Susquehanna University and the author of three choreopoems, Roadmap, How to Exterminate the Black Woman, and the recently released FORCE. She writes, teaches, and performs choreopoems across the nation, and she shares her life with her polycule and three disrespectful cats.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.