With this issue, we come to the end of a tumultuous year—definitely not the first, or even the most, roiled and roiling 366 days in human history, but a period that has certainly affected all citizens of Planet Earth. From January through December 2024, we have witnessed, among other unsettling events:
devastating ecological events—droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, the melting of glaciers, the continuing contamination of the planet’s waterways—which most scientists and eye-witnesses attribute to humanity’s callousness toward our home planet (but alas, many politically and financially influential people do not)
radical political changes in some of the countries heretofore regarded as stable (some not in positive ways), including Syria, Germany, France—and the United States.
Persimmon Tree is a magazine of the arts. But the arts reflect and—hopefully, if not always immediately—influence all that occurs on our little blue ball. Like the universe in which Earth floats, life here is volatile. This is, apparently, an uncomfortable necessity. As Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her hallmark 1969 “feminist science fiction” novel The Left Hand of Darkness, “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.”
A new year looms before us, and you will find, reading the Persimmon Tree Forum, that despite disappointments and fears regarding the uncertain future, many in our community are looking forward with hope and determination. “We have faced great challenges before and triumphed,” one Forum contributor writes, “we can do it again.”
“We older women writers and artists can effect ultimate change with the works we create,” writes another Forum contributor. And in this issue, as in every issue of Persimmon Tree, you will find stunning poetry, gripping fiction, remarkable visual art, stirring music, and thoughtful, thought-provoking nonfiction. Who knows what effects these works of art by older women may have as they reverberate from our pages out into the turbulent world?
As Le Guin wrote in Words Are My Matter (2016), “Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”
Editor-in-Chief
Persimmon Tree readers will recognize and love young Joey’s mother, Ellie, as she navigates through poverty and around a philandering, alcoholic husband to help her boy achieve his dream of becoming a classical musician. She scrimps and saves to take her nine-year-old boy to the San Francisco Symphony to hear Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, though she had never before set foot in a concert hall.
Readers will follow Joey through his childhood with all its real-life pain and watch him use his creativity to “get even” for his dad’s cruelty. Though his relationship with his mother is not without trials, she models for him loyalty, persistence, and hard work, and allows no excuses when times are hard.
In high school, Joey is torn between his love for a curly-haired beauty and pursuing his musical dream. When another girl courts him and offers to help him pay his way through college and music lessons, Joey marries her, thus forming a tormented love triangle.
You will follow Joey as he becomes a successful musician. But, having achieved his musical goals, will Joey ever be able to set right his personal life?
Available on Amazon
Check out Nanci’s website for samples of her writing and art. Nancileewoody.com
And click here to hear the music in Tears and Trombones.
Educator, photographer, writer and steward of the land are just some of the threads that delineate Sally W. Donatello’s creative survival. In the digital darkroom, she narrates nature’s story. One of her images is included in Orion (Autumn 2024 print issue), and several are in both the print and online versions of Confluence (cover art, Spring 2023; cover art plus five images, Autumn 2022).
Victoria Hamlin has been painting and making art all her life. She went to Music and Art High School in New York (in music) and graduated from City College of the City University of New York with a BA in painting. She worked in construction and related fields, public and private, for 30 years before retirement, often as a union shop steward. She continues to participate in the art community, taking a wide variety of classes and workshops and showing her work. She also continues to be a social activist. You can see more of her work on her 
Nanci Woody works in pastels, oils and pen and pencil and is also a photographer. Her photo, “Supermoon,” won the Juror’s Award at the California State Fair and The Curator’s Award at the PBS annual on-air art show. Nanci also wrote the award-winning novel,
I like it that I can start the new year
(as if it was ever new!) with hope. Yes words matter and I welcome the optimism, experience. beauty and wisdom found in Persimmon Tree with which to embed my soul in 2025.