Greetings dear readers from every dimension,

It’s a pleasure to welcome you to The Sanctuary Magazine’s 17th Issue: Gallery of Ghosts. Our editors experienced many slammed doors, bloodstained messages, and silent apparitions while compiling this volume. We’ve curated this gallery, this soiree of specters, to show you the worlds of warm antique stores, journaled apocalypses, graveyard lovers, and discordant, crack-shattered divinity. While we’ve done our best to make this volume safe to peruse, we cannot guarantee that a few sneaky specters will not escape.

As this year’s resident ghost-wrangler and Sanctuary editor of three years, it’s been a joy, pleasure, and honor to help this magazine grow from whispers to wonders. Thank you to my lovely team, especially Amber Watkin for the art and cover design, and all editors past and present. I hope we’ve honored your echoes.

Now we invite you, dear reader, to join us for this journey of home and haunting. Descend to the depths with us, and explore the crevices and chasms that can only be reached by ectoplasm.

Light a candle. Turn the page. Welcome the ghosts.

As Long As You Believe,

Emily Hizny

Managing Editor aka Prophetic Puppeteer

Emily Hizny

Junior Editor aka Resident Rhetorician

Sarah Ledet

Visual Arts Editor aka Avant-Garde Abstract-Ghost

Amber Watkin

Co-Poetry Editor aka Syllable Slasher

Kaci MoDavis

Co-Poetry Editor aka Lyrical Lune

Noel Munguia-Moreno

Prose Editor aka Prepper of Prose

Hal Dittbrenner

Website Manager aka Wrangler of the Wild Web

Avery Atkins

PR Manager aka Devilish Delegate

Lindsay Hirschman

Senior Audio Media Editor aka Inaudible Intern I

Ellie Cameron

Junior Audio Media Editor aka Inaudible Intern II

Haley Seitz

Academic Advisor aka Overseer of the Omnibus

Dr. Laurence Roth

Prose Reading Board aka Prose Poltergeists

Lynn Forest, Olive Lambert, Sadie Leary, Ellie Pasquale, and Kendall Reif

Poetry Reading Board aka Poetry Poltergeists

Kathryn Murray, Kaitlyn Wagner, and Kaeli Waldstein

Prose Winner

“If Spring Comes Again” - Isabelle Nygren -

Poetry Winner

“On Shattering” - Sydnie Howard -

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The Candlewick Prize is awarded to a contributor from each genre whose piece strikes us, whose lines we return to and whose characters float behind us, specters of what we pulled from their lines.

This year’s prizes are awarded to Sydnie Howard, of Susquehanna University, for her poem “On Shattering” and to Isabelle Nygren, of University of Alaska Fairbanks, for her piece “If Spring Comes Again.”