Welcome 2026
Happy New Year!
We held our final reading for volume 12 at the beginning of December. You can read about it below, because in the flurry of the holidays, it’s just now getting posted.
With the madness of December behind us, the Santa Barbara Literary Journal Team is ready to start the new year. We have a lot we’re looking forward to in 2026.
We are Now Noleta Press
The Santa Barbara Literary Journal has a new publisher. We’re in the process of bringing all the back issues of the journal and other publications from our prior publisher under our control. Watch for updates, and discounts, as we make them available again for purchase.
Junior Bases joins us as our new Assistant Editor.
Junior is a student in the college of creative studies at UCSB. His flash fiction piece Santa Barbara is included in volume 11 as well as the fiction section of our website. Look for Junior’s interviews, reviews, and whatever else we ask him to write about on our blog.
2026 Publications
We’re hard at work on volume 13, Mysterious Ways, due in bookstores in May. This will be the second collection of stories and poems from our submission call for Superposition. We’re excited to be able to put together another issue from this call.
Volume 14 is due out in the fall. We’ll post more about its theme and submission dates in the coming weeks.
An Afternoon at the Handlebar
With the late afternoon sun slanting through the foliage of the side patio’s singular tree, a small crowd gathered to hear the work of local writers and poets on the afternoon of Saturday, December 6th at the Handlebar Coffee Roasters on De la Vina Street in Santa Barbara.
It was the perfect day for a reading. Much different from November 15th, when a multiday storm rocked Southern California, and we opted to postpone our event. Some of our original readers were no longer available and we would have to improvise. Luckily, we had a short stack of back issues and a handful of past contributors in attendance, making this a multi-issue reading.
Jennifer Gunner kicked things off with her flash fiction piece Like a Hammer Finds a Nail, from Volume 12. She followed up with Purple, Purple, Purple, found in Volume 10. Two vastly different love stories from a talented local writer.
Shira Musicant came next, reading The Little Man from volume 12, followed by Stirred to Perfection from volume 9. We’re thrilled to include two more of Shira’s flash in volume 13.
Max Talley opted to keep the mood light by reading an excerpt of his short story The Duke of Barstow from volume 9. By keeping it light, I mean he had everyone in stitches with his distinctive humorous style. If you want to catch Max’s distinctive serious style, check out The Fog of Future War in volume 12. Or his collection of short stories, When the Night Breathes Electric published by Borda Books in 2023. Better yet, pick up his latest crime novel, Peace, Love, and Haight, available through Three Room Press.
Calla Gold, Fiction Editor for volume 12, was next to take the stage, with a dramatic reading of Scales and Bases written by her spouse, Jeremy Gold and published in volume 4. Nick Deitch, Art Editor for volume 12, closed out the fiction portion of the event with an excerpt of his short story The Rift, from volume 2.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have any overlap between the poets in attendance and the Lit Jo volumes on hand. To make sure the audience got to hear at least some of the fantastic poetry available in volume 12, we finished up with the MC reading two of the poems in volume 12 that we nominated for the Pushcart prize, Expectant, by Nadia Szold, and Potential Energy by Joseph Gesky.
With the reading done, attendees lingered in the shared experience, chatting together and picking up copies of whatever issues we had on hand. It was a magical way to close out the year. I want to thank the Handlebar Coffee Roasters, their staff, and Amy Kluck for putting it all together.
