What We’re Talking About in Issue 1002 (December 2025)
The complete table of contents as it appears in the December 2025 issue of Blank Spaces.
from the editor—An Act of Insubordination
shameless — In Soft Serve, a mother’s voice echoes across decades as Lauren Kalinowski makes a tender examination of shame, sweetness, and the courage it takes to parent different than you were parented.
Over shared meals and fine wine, a friendship unfolds across the careful revealing of one woman’s extraordinary survival, measured in champagne toasts, bread pudding, and the unspoken economics of generosity in E. P. Lande’s Rozelle.
Digging Deep by Taimi Poldmaa takes us back to pandemic stillness as a painter who has lost her vision finds it again through wildflowers catalogues with grandchildren, each bulb and blossom a quiet meditation on rootedness, recovery, and the slow return of colour.
flash fiction — In Sandra Whitworth’s short story 10 thru 12, a dwindling community clings to their high-rise’s upper floors as water rises below, their stubborn devotion to sunset views and happy hour rituals darkly comic against the creeping certainty of what they’ve refused to see.
The last of an ancient kind narrates the indignities of modernity in archaic contempt in Brian Austin’s In the Gloaming.
Dinner Party puts us in a warm dining room thick with cigar smoke, where Dennis Stein invites us to watch as a famished narrator awaits the genius everyone has gathered to meet, building toward one careful question about future wars and an answer that silences the room in his fictionalized imagining of an alleged historical moment.
red solo cup — In Alan Hill’s wry poem In Praise of the North, we observe him stranded at a Walmart where he find something like freedom in anonymity and unlimited condiments.
Elizabeth Rosell uses her poetic voice in My Father’s Paintings and Dad’s Books to share two elegies for inheritance, tracing what cannot be kept in her poignant accounting of loss.
Leslie Stark presents the melodramatic self-pity incited by flat-pack furniture made gently comedic by the juxtaposition of a child’s joyful oblivion in her satirical poem, Can We Fix It?
fiction — The Golden Child by Renee Cronley allows us to observe as an unwavering witness watches a girl perform flawless teatime rituals in a too-perfect room, her first-place win hollow without the attention of those who should care the most.
Ross Peacock captures the casual cruelty and freedom of mid-century children in his story Apple Wars, where gangs of unsupervised boys navigate tribal loyalties and the fleeting brutality of green apple season before the weapons turn to mush.
food of love — Through the digressive intimacy of pasta night, Daniel Schertzer transforms farfalle and gluten suspicions into an entry point where Springsteen’s piano, Clarence Clemons’ transcendent saxophone, and the small rituals of overcooking dinner converge in unexpected grace in his essay Jungleland.
different strokes — Through layered abstractions created in residency studios, from Newfoundland’s stark winds to the soft light of France, Catherine Gutsche maps the inexpressible: not landscape itself, but the memory of place where stillness, ambiguity, and quiet emotional truth converge on canvas in her essay and accompanying paintings of Art as Sanctuary.
story matters— Through the lens of high-end manuscripts, value pieces, and signature platforms, Pauline Shen maps the unglamorous architecture of a writing life, where creativity means scheduling yourself across scales, finding inspiration at the health club, and knowing when to set aside the novel for the social media post in her informative piece Balancing Writing Projects.
between the lines — Gail M. Murray brings us a review of On Isabella Street, by Canadian author, Genevieve Graham.
write prompt challenge winner — Lori Green presented a strong contest entry with her short fiction Midnight Journey on a Train Going Anywhere, one that the judges called “frighteningly plausible” and “emotionally resonant.”
final word — No Separation by Raye Hendrickson takes us on a winter hike, where one young tree speaks kinship, collapsing the distance between observer and observed into something like laughter, something like recognition.
