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
When All the Girls Stopped Singing follows Zora Monro, a Washington, DC human rights advocate, whose carefully constructed life unravels after her mother’s sudden death. Hidden files and cryptic notes expose a long-buried secret about Zora’s origins—one that stretches from America’s fraught racial history to the war-ravaged nation of Sudan.
She navigates a punishing terrain, guided by two men with hidden agendas, confronting betrayal and the desolation of her people. She returns home with life-changing responsibility and information that critically endangers everyone she loves.
Spanning continents and generations, the novel explores the cost of silence, the weight of inheritance, and what it means to claim one’s own story in the shadow of burgeoning violence.
“To call When All the Girls Stopped Singing a thriller or suspense story would be to do it an injustice. It’s a social and psychological commentary on surviving violence, change, and trauma... [it] personalizes the process of stepping up, living one’s ideals, and moving into roles which embrace unexpected concessions and confrontations alike.” — Midwest Book Review
“A heart-pounding, sharp-edged journey to Africa. Must read!” — E Osmondi, Reedsy Discovery
“Lush imagery fills every page of this thoroughly engaging read that will open your eyes and seize your soul. I highly recommend it.” — Ken Davis, Author, Avengers of the Sun
Available through Current Words Publishing, Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or on order from your local independent bookstore.
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.