Summer 2026 | Relief (print)
Summer 2026 | Relief (print)
The 2026 issue of Relief is now available for preorder.
Loon and rippling water at the forefront of Autumn Wright’s cover art invite you into Relief 2026. David J.S. Pickering’s “silence = death” grapples with living in the midst of repeated cycles of injustice. Mika Seifert’s “Bardo” asks, from a pilot’s uncanny island, how one might move forward despite uncertainty and loss. Elizabeth Bolton’s “Burn It All Down: Notes from an Art History Major” begins with a single flower’s survival from destruction and the wish to understand why. Whether through joyful observation of beauty and connection, unresolved reflection on life’s tangible uncertainties, or determination to simply live life each day, the 2026 issue of Relief asks, in many voices, how we might best carry on.
Cover artist Autumn Wright’s delightfully quirky take on the still life invites us into this year’s edition of Relief, in which creation brims with surprises. Alice Haines’ “The Grand Jester” sings with the joyful tumble of discovery; Yance Wyatt’s “Unsolicited Marital Advice from Big Mouth Billy Bass” presents a woman’s time of reflection punctuated by the interjections of a vocal fish; Willow Groskreutz’s “The Weight of Winter” paints a sweeping vision of Alaska’s landscape and a life story shaped by ice and aurora. Relief 2025 contains pride, grief, wonder, desperation, and explores the unexpected angles we find in our experience of it all.