MacQ’s founding editor, Clare MacQueen, is pleased to announce the nominations of five poetic works for Best Spiritual Literature, published annually by Orison Books (Asheville, NC). Results are projected to be announced in November 2026, followed in December by the release of Volume 11 of the anthology.

As described by the publisher in “Our Mission”:

Best Spiritual Literature is an annual collection of the finest spiritually engaged writing from a broad and inclusive range of perspectives, that appeared in periodicals in the preceding year....

We believe that the best spiritual art and literature call us to meditate and contemplate, rather than asking us to adopt any ideology or set of propositions. This type of art evokes the human experience of transcendence and explores the mysteries of being, and in so doing opens our minds and hearts to the divine and the possibility of becoming the fullest humans we can be. In our view, spiritual writing has little to do with subject matter. Rather, the kind of work we seek to publish has a transcendent aesthetic effect on the reader, and reading it can itself be a spiritual experience....

(Additional info is available at Orison Books submission guidelines.)

As Clare says, “I’m profoundly grateful to these wonderful writers for publishing with MacQueen’s Quinterly, and I wish them all the best of luck!”

• ⚡  11. (my daughter weeps to my wife) by Scott Ferry
  
  
• ⚡  Dark News (a trio of Fireflies) by Kendall Johnson
  
  
• ⚡  Heart Healing by Judy Kronenfeld
  
  
• ⚡  Easter Monday, My Sister Ascends to Heaven with Pope Francis
  [pantoum] by Alexis Rhone Fancher
  
  
• ⚡  Sitting with Her Body by Thomas A. Thomas
  
  

Links to MacQ nominations for previous issues:

Best Spiritual Literature [Volume 10, 2025]

Best Spiritual Literature [Volume 9, 2024]

Best Spiritual Literature [Volume 8, 2023]

The Orison Anthology [Volume 7, 2022]