This week’s featured piece is “Faith’s Keeper” by Devan Brettkelly. Brettkelly is a copywriter and short story writer. She graduated from Scripps College and holds an MFA in Fiction from Saint Mary’s College. Check out the full piece here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Contributor Spotlight: Sarah Cross. Sarah is a poet & a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist & a mother. She currently lives in Connecticut. She edits poetry for the Journal of Medical Humanities. She has travelled to six continents & 45 states. Read more here: medicine.yale.edu/profile/sara...

Our featured piece this week is “Tray Line” by Udgita Pamidigantam. Pamidigantam is an undergraduate student and researcher at Johns Hopkins University studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Medicine, Science and the Humanities. Read here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Contributor Spotlight: Katia Engell. Katia is an artist & poet located in Toronto, Canada. When she’s not making art, you’ll likely find her working creatively with older adults & people living with dementia. Her primary art medium is collage. Find her on IG @planetkatia_

This week’s Issue 08 feature is “Instructions for Care” by Eleanor Holmes. Holmes is an ND mother-doctor-writer of poetry & prose. She lives in Valencian Country, Spain, and works as a hybrid GP for the NHS in Weston-super-mare. Read the full piece here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Today’s Issue 08 feature is “Sole Purpose” by Gloria Heffernan. Heffernan is the author of the collections Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica (Kelsay Books) and What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List (New York Quarterly Books). Read more here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

This week's featured Issue 08 piece: “It’s In Your Blood (My Mother Tells Me)” by Brenton Sizwe Zola. Sizwe Zola is a first-generation writer, interdisciplinary artist, and researcher. See the full piece and learn more about the author at tendonmag.org .

Issue 08: Care Contributor Spotlight — Autumn Ogunbamise. She is a NP specializing in Neurosurgery, mother of two, artist and wife. She has been a nurse practitioner in neurosurgery for 10 years and likes to taking painting and drawing classes in her spare time. IG @szgrnbrg

Issue 08: Care Spotlight — “Only a Memory” by GJ Gillespie. Utilizing figurative forms to highlight vulnerabilities held in the human condition, Gillespie’s work explores the fragility of consciousness and identity. See the piece and learn more about the artist at tendonmag.org.

Contributor Spotlight: Elodie Saint-Louis. A Haitian‑American writer and cultural storyteller, she's been published in ZZYZYVA, Joyland, Dazed, and Hyperallergic. She is the recipient of the Georgia Poet Laureate’s Prize and is a 2021 Periplus Fellow. IG @aselodie Substack Permanent Daydream.

Featured piece from Issue 08: Care - “Cookbook” by Eliana Gruvman. Gruvman is a passionate reader, editor, and writer. She currently serves as Editorial Feedback Consultant and flash fiction editorial assistant at CRAFT. Read the whole piece at tendonmag.org.

Contributor Spotlight: Willy Conley is a Baltimore-based writer, photographer, and professor emeritus of theatre at Gallaudet University. Born profoundly deaf, he first turned to photography after a 1975 internship in Johns Hopkins’ Department of Pathology Photography. See more at willyconley.com.

From Issue 08: Care — “Beads” by Babs Weiss. Weiss's mother was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome in 2022, and “Beads” offers insight into that period of their lives. She is a textile artist and garment designer based in Philadelphia, PA. You can find her work on Instagram at @babstextiles.

Editorial Staff Spotlight: Khalid Mitchell. Khalid currently lives in Charleston, SC and is doing a service year for AmeriCorps as a Literacy Interventionist. He has been published in BULLSHIT LIT and Astrolabe and was included in Best Small Fictions 2025. Check out his Letterboxd (@defeatist).

From Issue 08: Care, “Let Me See Your Face” By Daniel Barrios. Barrios is a Dominican/Puerto Rican writer and educator from Staten Island, NY. He was a finalist in the 2025 EastOver Prize for Debut Story Collection and the 2025 Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series. Read it at tendonmag.org

Join us at #AWP26 in Tendon’s hometown of Baltimore! 🥳 Drop by Booth 238 at the Bookfair to pick up a freshly printed copy of our new issue and a few other fun goodies—then check out more work by our co-exhibitor @synapsisjournal.bsky.social. We’re so excited to see you there!

Contributor Spotlight: Lucy Zhang! Zhang writes, codes, & watches anime. Her work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review, & elsewhere. She’s actively trying to teach her 5-month-old to appreciate the art of literature & anime. Find her on IG @Dango_Ramen.

Our first featured piece from “Care”: “Fistful of Ocean” by Dariana Guerrero. Guerrero is a writer, activist, educator, & spoken word poet from Lawrence, MA. You can find more of her work on darianaguerrero.com. Read the full poem here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

We are so happy to share that Tendon’s Issue 08: Care is now live! Our deepest thanks to everyone involved in making this issue a reality. Read here today: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz... Artwork: Nina Violette, Mother and Daughter, watercolor and digital drawing, France 2022.

Bethany Reid has been obsessed with writing her entire life. Her 4th poetry collection, The Pear Tree: Elegy for a Farm, won the 2023 Sally Albiso Award from MoonPath Press. She leads a weekly writing workshop, teaches for the Creative Retirement Institute (CRI), & blogs at www.bethanyareid.com.

Contributor Spotlight: Dustin Grinnell!Dustin is a Boston-based writer who explores the intersection of medicine & the humanities. His short fiction & essays have appeared across numerous literary journals & magazines. He is also the creator & host of Curiously. Read more at www.dustingrinnell.com.

Contributor Spotlight: Adrienne Pilon! Pilon is an essayist, poet, and teacher. Her work has appeared in Tendon Magazine, Solstice, The Linden Review, Blanket Sea, New Verse News, and elsewhere. She is a prolific baker and once won a ribbon at the state fair for her Black Russian Rye bread 🍞

Sonakshi Srivastava is a senior writing fellow at Ashoka University, the translations editor at Usawa Literary Review, and an educational arm assistant at Asymptote. She navigates life with tarot, memes, and a suspicion that the universe is subtweeting her. Find her on IG @sonakshisrivastava.11

Audrey Fatone currently resides in Raleigh, NC. She writes about the intersections of queerness in the natural world and going to the woods as means for finding unconditional love and acceptance. Read more of her poems in Issue 07: Rest: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Our Editorial Staff Spotlight this week features our wonderful Design Intern, Anaya Marei! Anaya “does language” across mediums. Sometimes, she is succinct.

The countdown begins 🗓️ We’re abuzz with excitement for Tendon’s new issue. Stay tuned for Issue 08: Care, coming February 2026! 🌟

Contributor Spotlight: Eleanore Tisch! Tisch is a writer, educator, and artist from Chicago. She has lived all across the Midwest, from the foothills of the Rockies to the grassland plains of Iowa to the urban sprawl of Chicago itself. See her work at eleanoretisch.com.

Renée Nicole Good was a poet. We are horrified by the cruelty of her murder and ICE’s barring of a nearby physician to render aid. In times like these, we need art more than ever. source: poets.org.

"Is When" is a piece by Benjamin Marrow, a poet from Las Cruces, New Mexico. With anaphora serving as the gentle guide, this poem brings the reader down a quiet road, one where "the milk of stars will flood every empty arroyo". Read the full piece here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Contributor Spotlight: Amelia Dutch Player! Amelia is a dramatic writer based in Savannah, Georgia. She is originally from the small Rocky Mountain town of Durango, CO, and has two dogs named Whiskey and Mr. Fred Rogers. Check out her works and updates on YouTube and Instagram at @amelia_dutch.

This week's Editorial Staff Spotlight features our new Editorial Intern: Zephyr Hameem. Zephyr is a third year medical student at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. Outside of studying, Zephyr enjoys spending time with her family, writing poetry, and being out in nature.

Our featured piece for the week is "Sensory Deprivation" by Genevieve Creedon. A scholar, poet, and essayist, Creedon explores relational meaning-making with human, animal, and environmental others through her writing. Read the full poem here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Contributor Spotlight: Sophia Zhao! Hailing from Delaware, Sophia is a poet and visual artist whose work has been featured in JAMA, Palliative and Supportive Care, Cordite Poetry Review, and The Adroit Journal, among others. Check out her portfolio here: sophiajzhao.com

Meet one of our Nonfiction Readers: Maggie Hart! Maggie is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her works have been featured in Narratively, The Audacity, The Blood Project, Mud Season Review, December, and elsewhere. Outside of school, she enjoys hiking, running, and traveling 🌎

This week's featured piece is "The Harpy and the Featherbed" by Lamb. Her work blurs the boundaries between the body and the natural world, and centers on themes of chronic illness, transformation, and mortality. Check out the full piece here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

This week's contributor feature is Lynn Thayer! Lynn is a multidisciplinary artist from Salida, CO. She's a graduate of Lighthouse’s Poetry Collective and was accepted to a residency at Vermont Studio Center in 2026. Check out her works at www.lynnthayer.com

This week's featured piece is "(un) rest" by K.F. Mittendorf. Mittendorf is a multiply-disabled academic scientist, advocate, and full-time patient for the last decade whose work can be found at katemittendorf.com. See their full piece in Issue 07: Rest!

This week's featured piece is "My Father's Pony" by Amelia Player. Her work explores intensive depths of feeling and strives to create an insightful reflection of our world. Check out the full piece here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Starting off our Editorial Staff Spotlight series with our new Fiction Editor, Caitlin Annette Johnson! Johnson's writing has appeared in NonBinary Review, Anodyne, Dunes Review, and others. We’re so excited to have them on the Tendon team!

Our featured piece this week is "The way I lie" by Alexandra Bergmann, appearing in Tendon Issue 07: Rest. Bergmann is a writer, scientist, and educator from the San Fransisco Bay Area. Read more here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Thank you to all who submitted for Issue 08 - we're excited to share it soon! In the meantime, let's take a trip down memory lane to past issues. Our featured piece is “Transience” by Clement Abayomi, appearing in Tendon Issue 07: Rest. Read more here: hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/tendon-magaz...

Opportunities to submit work for our next issue on the politics and poetics of "Care" are drawing to a close. We look forward to receiving your poetry, art, non-fiction or fiction submissions by 11.1! tendonmag.submittable.com/submit

Looking for something to do on the spookiest day of the year? @cncsi.bsky.social is running our annual online Halloween workshop tomorrow with the theme of ‘Gothic Afterlives’ — looking at media receptions of c19 gothic themes in tv, film, video games, & radio 👻 www.durham.ac.uk/research/ins...

Opportunities to submit work for our next issue on the politics and poetics of "Care" are drawing to a close. We look forward to receiving your poetry, art, non-fiction or fiction submissions by 11.1! tendonmag.submittable.com/submit

Tendon is currently soliciting art, poetry, and prose (fiction an non-fiction) on the theme of care. Submit a piece by 10/19 and we'll waive the submission fee! tendonmag.submittable.com/submit

We are looking for volunteers who are interested in writing 300-350 words, (about 1-2 paragraphs) on how disability is portrayed in horror movies. Deadline 24th October 2025 Contact Richardamm(at)gmail.com Find our free disability zines: linktr.ee/disabilityark

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Tendon is now accepting poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art engaging with the politics and poetics of care. For more information, see tendonmag.submittable.com/submit

happy to have you on the team @caitlinannette.bsky.social!

For those interested, cool things in the works ahead and only two more days to apply!

Come work with us! Tendon is currently looking for a Fiction editor, a media and event intern, and readers for Fiction, Poetry, and Visual Art. hopkinsmedicalhumanities.org/join-tendon/