MAKING WAVES

Written By Nicole Bernadette Birkett

Issue 7

“Temples and Prisons” |

Fall 2026

“My body is a temple” was the inspiration for this issue, with the added notion that, for others, the body may be a prison. We were looking for pieces about finding both the holy and profane in stone, flesh, the mind, or anywhere else. To our delight, we received pieces that showed us that a monastery might feel like a refuge for one person and a cage to another, and one might even find a kind of freedom in a jail cell.

Cover art, “Taking Flight,” by Devon Balwit.
Order Copies (coming)
 
PREVIEW ISSUE 
We encourage you to ask your local bookstore if they are able to order this issue for you. Copies will be made available at the Ludington Area Center for the Arts’ gift store, and Ludington’s bookstore, the Book Mark.

VISUAL ART

AUDIO

Several members of Ludington Writers are visually impaired and their advocacy and input on how Ludington Writers, Making Waves, and our world as a whole could be more inclusive led us to seek to provide author-read audio of each of the pieces selected for this issue.

We are grateful to each author who participated in this endeavor.

Borrowed Cathedral
Emma Reynolds
Loon Lake
Margaret Steiger
Return to the River
Michael Breazeale
Throne
Steve Brown
Cribbage was Invented by a Poet
Tayler Mercil
The Sky is What I Want to Tell You About
Ruth Zwald
Free Man has had Enough
Ace Boggess
Ghost Of Sugar House, 1915.m4a
Finlinson-Hodgkinson
Five Years My Junior and Five Missed Calls
Ahalia Persaud
Uncomfortable Beliefs.m4a
Finlinson-Hodgkinson
Ready for a New Day
Jenifer Cartland
Think of Suffering as Being Washed
Jenifer Cartland
Middle School Bug Project
Tayler Mercil
Alarm
Jeanne Blum Lesinski
Nicole Bernadette Birkett

Nicole Bernadette Birkett is the editor in chief of Ludington Writers’ relaunched publication, Making Waves. An award-winning poet from the boglands of rural West Michigan, Nicole raises goats, sheep, and miscellaneous fowl and equine.

 

When not writing or triaging, Nicole assists the Michigan Education Association from their Ludington field office and leads the Ludington Writers group and the Mason County 4-H creative writing program. Her work has appeared in Variety Pack and MSU presses the Offbeat and OATS.

 

@nbbirkett

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MAKING WAVES