Artemis Speaks

Sarah EK Muse, a native Virginian, is an award-winning artist, jewelry designer, and goldsmith known for her exquisite bespoke jewels that celebrate personal narratives and strengthen connections to the past, present, and future.

Serving as the backdrop for her inspirations, her private atelier, Studio 12, formerly a two-stall stable, is nestled in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, where she plays with dreamy gemstones and the finest metals. You can also find her meditating in the woods or growing food in her organic garden, hanging with her chickens, or cozied up to a fire with a good book.

With over 25 years of experience making fine jewelry, Sarah’s ability to infuse soulful sentiment and style into her bespoke pieces sets her apart. She ensures that each jewel speaks directly to the heart of its wearer. Working hand in hand with her clientele, she creates a personal connection to design pieces that transcend the ordinary, weaving their story into an exceptional artistic vision and future heirloom.

https://sarahmuse.com/

Michele Evans, a fifth-generation Washingtonian (D.C.), is a poet, writer, high school English teacher, and adviser for her school's literary magazine, Unbound. Before becoming an educator, Michele Evans studied at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts; King’s College in London, England; and the Graduate School at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. This 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of The ASP Bulletin poetry contest has been published in Artemis, The Write Launch, Tangled Locks, Sky Island Journal, Maryland Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poem "anticlea" won first place in the 2023 ASP Bulletin poetry contest sponsored by Alan Squire Publishing. purl, her debut collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2025. You can find her at www.awordsmithie.com or @awordsmithie on Instagram.


"Working in a school system is “heart” work. You keep our students at the center of every conversation, decision, and in everything you do. You know every student by name and by need and go above and beyond to provide students with what they need to succeed."
Dr. White, Roanoke City schools

Linda Atkinson is a sculptor living and working in Botetourt County. She taught art history for 21 years at Virginia Western Community College, as well as studio courses for University /Santa Cruz, Hollins College, Roanoke College, and Radford University among others. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Atlanta. She spent 15 years in California and taught sculpture and 3-D design at the University of California/Santa Cruz. “I believe that the artist is an envoy of the human spirit whose job it is to reestablish the “enchanted” dimensions at the core of human existence—poetry, myth, passion, imagination, true love, magic, the marvelous, dreams.”

[email protected]

A. J. Gnuse is the bestselling author of Girl in the Walls, published in 2021.

He received an MFA in fiction from UNC Wilmington, and his writing has appeared in the Guardian, Gulf Coast, Literary Hub, Los Angeles Review, and other venues.

A native of New Orleans, he lives in Texas, where he is a literary co-editor of Artemis Journal alongside his wife, Donnie Secreast.

“The novel begins as an eerie meditation on grief, family dysfunction, and things that go bump in the night. But about halfway through, Gnuse’s masterfully crafted slow burn ignites into a hair-raising thriller that is as unnerving as it is unexpected.”

- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Girl in the Walls poses the question — how well do we really know where we live? . . . Gnuse tugs the seemingly insignificant into the spotlight and holds it there. He makes the forgotten and easily brushed-away threads of the story crystal clear while entwining a narrative of growing up and learning to live with, while not clinging to trauma. It is a story focused on the psychological without prescribing itself as such; it entertains while providing a mirror to analyze the fears that make us leave our lights on just a little bit longer each night.”
- Southern Review of Books

The Moss Center in Blacksburg, Virginia presented a live performance and historic collaboration between renowned poet and Virginia Tech legend Nikki Giovanni and saxophonist-composer and former Jazz Messenger Javon Jackson. Their collaboration for over a year has yielded the CD The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni.

For an intimate jazz performance, Jackson brought his bold-toned, Trane-inspired tenor lines to bear on a series of hymns, spirituals, and gospel numbers hand-picked by Giovanni. The live performance also included jazz singer, Nnenna Freelon. This collaboration with Nikki Giovanni produced Jackson's fifth album for his Solid Jackson Records label.

With a remarkable career as a Jazz saxophonist, Jackson released a potent tribute to a towering influence, Celebrating John Coltrane. His inaugural release on Solid Jackson Records featured the venerable drummer and former Coltrane collaborator Jimmy Cobb. He followed later in 2012 with Lucky 13, which featured the great soul-jazz keyboardist Les McCann and included a mellow instrumental rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry' Bout a Thing" along with a version of McCann's 1969 hit, "Compared to What."

That same remarkably productive year, Jackson received the prestigious Benny Golson Award from Howard University in Washington, D.C., for recognition of excellence in jazz. Jackson's debut on the Smoke Sessions label, 2014's Expression, was a live quartet recording from the Smoke Jazz & Supper Club in Upper Manhattan.

https://javonjackson.com/

River Sequence (a Meditation)

1. Riffle

This moment: like a fat round plum smooth as stone tumbled downstream, at the edge of stillness poised to roll. How long does it take a rock to travel the length of a river? How long does it take a mind to wind its way through a memory? Hold the present, juicy and heavy, in the palm of your hand. Loosen the fist of time and lean back, eyes closed, into turbulent water. Let the current lift your feet.

2. Run

A river begins at a clear, cold spring and flows one direction, riffles, runs, pools, and again. Time, too, moves forward in its eternal current, past-present-future. We try to contain it in rows of tidy boxes: line follows line, page follows page. A map draws a blue line we can trace with a finger on folded paper. When you stand in the river and look to its future, the current presses hard against the backs of your legs.

3. Pool

Yet we live days that feel like minutes, minutes that enlarge, engulf years. The river too seeps sideways into the soil of its banks, spreads wide and flat and far when it floods. Water evaporates up into mist and fog, falls back down as rain, each drop rippling out, mosaic of many circles. Still we float along, certain we know where the current will take us. Still we say: the river flows to the sea.

4. Riffle

At sea’s edge time passes more slowly than in higher climes, the scientists say, more slowly for feet than head. Are we drawn toes to tide because its pulse stretches our narrow days? Time: a wave rolling back on itself, a company of shimmering hourglasses that curl continuously toward the future until they end where they began. There is no time, the scientists say. Things happen. What if there is no time? Hard truth. Strange comfort.

Sandee McGlaun

New York-based country-soul singer/songwriter Lara Taubman delivers sobering subjects like mortality, mental health, spirituality, survival, and finding hope in an exceedingly turbulent & traumatized world on her sophomore album, Ol’ Kentucky Light, out September 16th on Atomic Sound Record Company.

Taubman clearly didn’t just stumble upon her muse. She channels her earliest influences—the classic country of Patsy Cline, the great gospel of Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers, and Mahalia Jackson, and the contemporary folk largess as filtered through Joni Mitchell. She reveals herself in her music.

http://www.larataubman.com

https://www.bobrotche.com/Bob Rotche is a Virginia-based wood artist. He has worked with wood in one manner or
another for most of his life but it was exposure to the lathe and its ability to create smooth-flowing curves that really captured his imagination. He continues to use the lathe extensively but is now recognized more for his work with carving, color, and texture.

He states,
”I try to keep a very open and curious mind in my attitude towards wood art. There are so many approaches and techniques being pursued today that the opportunity to tell a story with wood has never been greater." Bob is involved with a number of local and online galleries and his work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions and several magazines."

Page Turner, an acclaimed artist, recently showed her art at the "Affiliation Show" at the National Arts Club in New York City. Page has worked with Artemis Journal for three years, and her ability to pair art and poetry is phenomenal! In this interview, Jeri Rogers explores how the layout comes into being with her creative skills.

"This year's theme is "transformative nature"

Change is the only constant, as they say, and to begin envisioning a more equitable, weird, and wonderful future for all, our journal encourages work that moves beyond narrow conceptions of both gender and environment. The Greek Lunar Goddess, Artemis, is our journal's perpetual muse. She protects wild animals, the wilderness, women, and children. This year, allow Artemis' light to illuminate new pathways prioritizing the wild over the well-tread.

Artemis Journal has many artists and writers, some first published, and others are well-known in their fields. We are honored to include the work of former US Poet laureate Natasha Trethewey, Virginia Poet Laureates Ron Smith and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, and artists Betty Branch, Steven Kenny, Michele Sons, Starroot, Sam Krisch, and Susan Saandholland.

Artemis donates 10% of journal sales earnings to a women's shelter for abused women in Southwest Virginia.

The arc of Susan's career is amazing. Besides her commitment to Photography, It includes a six-year term as President of the American Kidney Fund. She has been represented in three galleries and continues her desire to be of creative service to artists, dancers, and musicians. Her video skills helped numerous artists worldwide to have virtual shows during Covid isolation. Artemis Journal is pleased to publish her latest work, "Wilderness" in the 2023 Journal.