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Wild Greens 6, no. 1 (November 2025)
Wild Greens 6, no. 1 (November 2025)
Behind the Greens
Behind the Greens
Welcome to the Behind the Greens 2025 issue of Wild Greens
Welcome to the Behind the Greens 2025 issue of Wild Greens
In this special anniversary issue, to celebrate five years of Wild Greens, we're giving you a peak behind the curtain. Meet the editors: Rebecca, Hayley, Jacqueline, Myra, Jessica, and Tim. All the poetry, prose, watercolor, and needlepoint in this issue was created exclusively by us, the Wild Greens editorial team.
We also sent each other interview questions to share with you a little bit about the inner workings of Wild Greens and what keeps us going.
Finally, I've asked our editorial team and our in-house artist Maggie for creativity prompts to share with you, to help you find your creativity this November. We're encouraging you to be creative in little ways, but also to recognize the ways in which you are already creative!
As a small team, we're so proud to continue to be a part of the Wild Greens community, and to have you here with us.
Here's to another year of Wild Greens!
-Rebecca
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Support Wild Greens through our Ko-fi page!
Wild Greens: Behind the Greens (November 2025)
Wild Greens: Behind the Greens (November 2025)
by Maggie Topel
Digital drawing
Inspiration: For this logo, I went with a concept of "pulling back the curtain" inspired by the behind the greens / behind the scenes theme. On a personal note, I have been really into old, preserved mansions lately after tours of Pennypacker Mills in Montgomery County and Hyde Hall in Cooperstown. For the wallpaper pattern, I was inspired by Regency fabrics because of Jane Austen of course! I also kept the curtain light, airy, and translucent to symbolize that there's nothing to hide.
Creativity Prompt: The Wretchbook
Creativity Prompt: The Wretchbook
I asked Maggie what kind of creativity prompts keep her going. She said she keeps a "wretchbook" (writing sketchbook).
"I get self-conscious sketching in public, but I feel like writing in a little notebook is more surreptitious," she told me. "I use it to do a 'sketch' of my surroundings and any interesting characters that are around. It encourages observation and gives me practice on how to capture a place in writing."
Keeping a Wretchbook this November:
Try to do a daily sketch/wretch of a place you are in frequently, but describe it as though you are a stranger seeing it for the first time, or trying to describe it for someone who has never been there.
Even just in one small apartment there would be a lot of different areas, like living room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom etc... see what happens when you visit a familiar space with fresh eyes! - Maggie Topel
What inspires Myra: Edith Wharton's mansion, The Mount.
An Interview with Myra Chappius
An Interview with Myra Chappius
What do you look for in a poem? What makes a poem connect with you? I honestly can't pinpoint exactly what it is—it's just a feeling. But I always know it on the first pass.
Do you feel like there is a difference between your poetry-self and your prose-self? How are these two writers related and how are they distinct? My prose-self is my intellect, and my poetry-self is my soul. They influence each other but manifest separately.
What is your process like for writing and/or editing poetry? Entirely unstructured! I only write when the lightning of inspiration strikes—could be anytime, anywhere. And in between? Nothing.
Is there a poem or other work of writing/art that inspired (or continues to inspire) you? There are so many, but I think, perhaps, I relate more to the creator than the creation. Wharton, Whitman, and Van Gogh come to mind. I choose to share a picture of Edith Wharton's home, The Mount, as part of my inspiration. I first visited The Mount 2014 and felt an immediate kinship that really set me on my writing journey as an adult. The house and surrounding area serve as the location of my novella, and I return there frequently to renew my creative spark—in fact, I visited just this month.
What advice do you have for people hoping to express more of their creativity? Just do it! The act of creating begets creativity.
A Family Curse
A Family Curse
by Jacqueline Ruvalcaba
The curse struck Paula on just another day in another month of another year, a late workday at an office for a company whose name is not of importance. Paula is writing emails at her work desk, where she always is at two o’clock in the afternoon, when she realizes the sun has fallen from the sky.
Her workspace is now bathed in an indigo darkness. At this moment, Paula recognizes that her hold on time, once clenched in her fearful, careful, iron grip, has slipped. As the eldest daughter of the Castillo family, she knew she could one day fall prey to the family curse. So long as she kept track of time, never took it for granted, or wasted it away, she would be safe. But who could possibly stay that vigilant forever? Losing time was as easy as losing an earring or losing track of a thought; you often don’t realize it’s lost until it’s gone.
Paula knew it would happen one day—if she wasn't careful enough, she would end up stuck in perpetual darkness, a pocket of uncontrollable time, not knowing what day or what time it was anymore. At least, that was how her grandmother described the curse to her when she was just a little girl. But like with all curses, there was the promise that it could be broken. However, for Paula, breaking the curse would be different from how her great-great ancestors, her grandmother, and her mother broke theirs.
For her great-great ancestors, the key to breaking the curse was a bit simpler than it is nowadays. One said the perfect cup of tea had been the cure. Another documented that the scent of their favorite flower had been the cure. For her mother, the curse broke when her entire family uttered her name at once. Her grandmother’s curse broke when four-year-old Paula hummed an off-tune “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
Now in her dark office, Paula quickly stands from her desk and takes a panicked step forward. Then, in the blink of an eye, she is at the front door of her family home. Her back is to the home as though she just took the first step out to leave for work. With a heavy sigh, she looks up at the sunless sky and turns to take in the dark and empty home. Already she craves the warm blanket of sun on her skin, and the light her family brings with their there-ness, not knowing how long she will have to go without either. But just as she began to accept the darkness, she heard voices that seemed to come from the other end of a call she hadn’t answered yet.
“Hold on, Paula,” one says. She thinks it might’ve been one of her sisters, Marisol’s voice, or had it been Theresa’s? Her mother’s or grandmother’s? Or maybe it had been all of them at once. She thinks she heard them say they’re almost there. To hold on. And she really was trying to do just that. But it was so hard with everything out of order, dark, and jumbled. Lost in time.
Hold on.
But there Paula goes again, now sitting in her idling car, only to next pass by the kitchen window and table topped with four empty, ceramic tea mugs. Headlights break through the curtains above the sink, and Paula wants to go see who it may be so badly. But the next second—or was it the second prior—she lies down on her bed, no longer wandering the dark house. She hears the front door close, the doorknob turn, and keys jangle as they press into a lock.
“Paula!”
The sudden break in silence is a flash of light. Her mother’s voice makes time tick forward, one, two, three, four. This fact startles Paula enough for her to open her eyes and lift her head from her pillow—or is it the soft flower bed of creeping phlox she’d planted, she thought just the day before, outside in their garden. But time only moves forward for a moment before Paula is swept up again into the dark.
Her family is trying their hardest to find her. To bring her home. Retrace her steps, catch a glimpse of her in the kitchen, in the backyard, in the front, when suddenly she’s no longer there, but turning a corner, gliding down a hallway, through a doorway, up the stairs. Her mother calls out to her again. Her sisters jump at the chance to grab hold of her arm. But she disappears before their very eyes. Just before Marisol and Theresa can hand her a perfect cup of tea.
Then, her grandmother opens her bedroom door, and light from the hall inches inside. Paula is pulled up and out of bed, flower petals from the garden falling from her hair. The next second, Paula realizes she remains, if only for a moment, in one place, at one time, embraced in her grandmother’s arms. She smiles as she listens to her grandmother’s gentle, off-tune humming of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and feels the warmth of the light her grandmother brought with her settle on her skin.
*
Paula’s not sure exactly when it happened —if it’s been a day, days, a week, a month, or maybe even two. But time begins to move forward, Paula right with it.
The curse breaks on just another day in another month of another year. Paula had been pulled from the dark by her sisters’ perfect cups of tea, forward in time by her mother’s voice, and in the direction of light by her grandmother’s presence.
Paula now watches the sun slowly rise over the mountains, from where the Castillo women sit on the steps of their back porch, sipping steaming mugs of tea. Paula, her sisters, her mother, and her grandmother eventually get to work tidying up the home, tending to the weeds, and planting new flowers.
But before they begin, Paula makes sure to savor the time it takes to pull back the curtains and bathe the living room, her home, in light.
Dandelions & Ferns & Cattails, Oh My!
Dandelions & Ferns & Cattails, Oh My!
by Hayley J. Boyle
Embroidery
Inspiration: This is the second embroidered shirt I've done. The first one, Embroidered Floral Shirt, I published in our very first issue of Wild Greens all the way back in November 2020. And so I wanted to harken back to that origin issue, and share this second embroidery project as we launch into our 6th issue. For this one, I wanted to show some of my favorite, often overlooked, plants—dandelions, ferns, and cattails.
Jacqueline at her desk
An Interview with Jacqueline Ruvalcaba
An Interview with Jacqueline Ruvalcaba
What did you want to be as a kid? I wanted to be an author! When I was in kindergarten, I used to make little books out of pieces of blank paper and construction paper for the cover, staple them together, and volunteer to read them aloud to the class. I unfortunately don’t have that kind of courage anymore, though!
As our prose editor, when you select short stories and essays, you’re not only choosing based on the Wild Greens voice, you’re also creating it! What is a typical Wild Greens piece to you? What defines the Wild Greens “voice”? I think that Wild Greens is a place for honest, boundless creativity to be shared. So I love to see all kinds of writing, or “voices,” especially pieces that present ideas that make you think—or show another way of thinking, another perspective, another life, another world. I also love being amazed or amused by how someone else’s mind works or how they approach a theme!
Have you ever been surprised by a piece of short fiction submitted to Wild Greens that sits outside of your typical genre preferences? What about that work surprised you? How did it differ from the genre(s) you typically gravitate towards? I have! It wasn’t a piece that sat outside my genre preferences, but it sticks with me for its fearless and beautiful prose and the significance of its message: “The Art of Controversy” by Elaine Joy Edaya Degale. “The Floral QR Code” by Jesmal Jalal is also a piece that surprised me because of the creativity it took not only to create a QR code made of flowers, but also to tell the story of doing so! There are so many stories that have surprised me (I wish I could name them all!), and so many stories that don’t make it into an issue that I still think about.
Who are some of your favorite authors to read? Some of my favorite authors to read, or whose writing has stuck with me and inspired me, are Toni Morrison, Shirley Jackson, Octavia Butler, Marie Lu, and Maggie Stiefvater. I also admire the writing of Mary Shelley, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Isabel Allende!
Recognition
In the moment of electricity hands can’t hold a heartbeat.The straps won’t be hung from foot to shoulderHow can you recognize yourselfin a baby’s facewhen you don’t know who they will be?Recognition
Protection and controllook similar.A bee moving from flowerto flower, the clinging dust of millennia.
We don’t always know until we see a sunset from our depths,a sea turtle returning to the ocean wavescradling who we are today
by Jessica Doble
Rebecca editing on her couch
An Interview with Rebecca Lipperini
An Interview with Rebecca Lipperini
What was it like to start the magazine? Did you have a clear vision for what you wanted to create? When I started Wild Greens with Hayley in 2020, the vision was to have a place to post things that people in our community – friends, relatives, neighbors, friends-of-friends, relatives-of-relatives, neighbors-of-neighbors were making. So the initial call I think went on our personal social media pages, and then some people read it and thought of someone who might be interested, and we grew that way.
We’re much larger now and most of the people who publish in our magazine none of us have met personally, but I think that since we started very openly as a community place, we’ve held onto that, where artists who might be too shy to submit somewhere else will be told by a friend or a relative to submit with us.
You brought this community together, and you keep this community going. Can you share a few examples of what Wild Greens means to you as we enter the 6th volume? So many family members and friends got us started, but now we have this incredible community of artists and writers and musicians around the world—what about this project keeps you going? One thing that keeps me going is consistency and growth: seeing how people return to us both as readers and as contributors, and seeing how new people keep finding us. There are so many places where you can contribute work, but there’s something special about Wild Greens.
What does Wild Greens publish? How does an issue come together? Though I think of Wild Greens as a greens—a community space, I’m aware that as the editor-in-chief I’m making ultimate selections about the direction each issue goes. The things that I like and the things that I think you will all like get mixed together and I’m never sure where one thing ends and another begins. We’ve published things that one editor really goes to bat for— maybe it’s a piece of writing that for some reason really connected with them, and even if it’s not my cup of tea my thinking is always, well, maybe it will really connect with one of you. I fall back on that word “connection” all the time when I’m talking about what we publish, because I think it captures this fundamental thing about what makes art worthwhile. Something moves you. Something touches you. Something makes you see the world, even briefly, differently. Or more importantly, something makes you feel seen. Someone somewhere across the globe is making something that is exactly what you need to hear or see in that moment, and isn’t that wonderful? Connection.
What did you want to be as a kid? A dolphin trainer!
What inspired or inspires you to create, teach, and edit writing? I think writing is literal magic. You arrange some symbols together and disseminate truth, or change people’s minds, or share powerful feelings, or make things happen in the world. With some writing we are trying literally to put thoughts on a page and capture it. Incredible. Ambitious. Not really possible, but we believe it. And of course with storytelling we’re trying to transport you from reality to somewhere else, some other consciousness, some other way of seeing the world.
What's the most rewarding thing about being editor-in-chief? Working with the editorial team, without a doubt. I am truly blown away by how you all show up for Wild Greens, every month without fail, and do so much creative work to get each issue together.
Encounter
Everything can change in the space of a single breathI mean this—UnironicallyOne breath—one deep breathCan take you from madness to calmFrom envisioned ruin to questionable hopeFrom full speed ahead to the slow lane of reflectionEncounter
That one breath can be a lifelineThe stopping point on the teetering edge of sanity
Don’t forget it
by Myra Chappius
Hayley painting at her table
An Interview with Hayley J. Boyle
An Interview with Hayley J. Boyle
How did you begin editing for Wild Greens? Rebecca brought the idea to me to start Wild Greens back during the early days of the pandemic, framing it like a modern-day recreation of The Decameron. When I showed interest, she asked if I'd want to help by serving as the Arts Editor. I've been hooked ever since!
What are you looking for in submissions? I don't have any hard or fast rules, but I love things that make me pause and think, things that are clever but not overly cliche. I absolutely love abstract art, and I get so jazzed when I see abstraction in our submissions. One of my favorites recently was Neapolitan by Denise Bossarte. It's a stunning piece of photography that mimics the colors of neapolitan ice cream, and was submitted for our "Sweat" issue in July. How clever! How different! What a treat to see the captured moment of when an artist observed this rusting metal and peeling paint and think of a literal treat—ice cream! I get giddy thinking about it. I also look for differing mediums, whenever possible, so that we have variety.
Is there a certain medium you’ve been turning to lately? Is there something new you’ve been trying? I do try to set time aside for watercolor, embroidery, and poetry when I can, which are my preferred mediums. I think I'd love to try my hand at calligraphy at some point!
What did you want to be as a kid? An oceanographer or Marine Biologist!
Is there an artwork or art from another medium that inspired or inspires you? I feel like things from all over inspire me. I literally cried standing in front of cave drawings and carvings from the first humans in Grotte de Font-de-Gaume this past summer. That was a moment that filled me with love and inspiration for the creativity of the human spirit, even since the beginning of our time as a species. I get chills even thinking about the sculpture, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini. I'm obsessed with Cy Twombly’s Iliad at the Philadelphia Art Museum, and love abstract art in general. My husband and I visited the Centre Pompidou in Paris this past summer, which was exciting because it's now closed for a long-term 5-year renovation. The Pompidou was founded on the concept of decentralizing the creation of and access to art and culture and that human creativity carries immense political power—and all of that I find to be true and inspiring.
What is your favorite part of working with Wild Greens's art contributors? We have artists from literally all over the world at this point who trust us with their work, and that fills me with such awe. Like—they trust us with their work. What an absolute honor and privilege. Creating is vulnerable. And to know that people believe in us, that we'll care for their work, still astounds me, even 5 years on.
Infinite Sunsets
Infinite Sunsets
by Jessica Doble
Needlepoint
Inspiration: Inspired by The Summer I Turned Pretty
Tim at his piano
An Interview with Tim Brey
An Interview with Tim Brey
What are you looking for in music submissions? Honesty, heart, and awareness of audience.
What did you want to be as a kid? A major league baseball player, yes major league was part of it.
What advice do you have for people hoping to express more of their creativity? Only you can give yourself permission to be creative, and you give a gift to the world every time that you do.
What inspired or inspires you to make, teach, and edit music? I think of making music, and being creative in general, as an overflow of the heart. Teaching and editing music for Wild Greens feels like a part of that love and overflow.
Creativity Prompt: A surefire way to have a great idea
Creativity Prompt: A surefire way to have a great idea
A surefire way to have a great idea is to be somewhere where you are without a pencil and paper or computer. A steamy shower will do. You can also wait until it's 2am and you're half asleep in your room in the dark. If it's during the day and you're at work, you could wait until you're forced to attend the most boring meeting imaginable. Anything will do, just make sure that you absolutely have no way of writing things down. I guarantee you'll have the greatest idea of your life.
This works for me without fail, but as I can't write it down I always forget what the great idea was.
by Rebecca Lipperini
Jessica's workspace
An Interview with Jessica Doble
An Interview with Jessica Doble
Are there things you look for in submitted poetry that make you jump to "YES!"? If I’m surprised by language or a unique perspective, I get so excited. I love being challenged to look at something in a new way. I’m looking for beautiful language, personal stories, and clever turns of phrase.
If you could edit for one other genre of the magazine, which one would you edit for and why? I would edit for the art/handicraft genre. I am also a painter and fibre artist. Visual arts speak to a different part of the soul, I think. And I feel like I can express something different with the visual than I can in poetry.
What did you want to be as a kid? I wanted to be a marine biologist until my mother explained to me that it involves a lot of touching fish. That was not something I was interested in!
Do you remember what writing your first poem was like? The first poem I remember writing was this sensory poem in school. I walked around my house and wrote down all of the sights, sounds, and smells. I think that’s what solidified my interest in the reader experience. Can I make the reader experience the work the way I want them to by evoking emotion, drawing them through the poem like a hand-in-hand stroll through the forest with me. It’s what I love about poetry. It also just so happens to be my first published work, as well!
What advice do you have for people hoping to express more of their creativity? My advice is to be creative every day. Whether that’s sketching out something in your sketchbook, making something silly, or whatever, there is always something creative you can do that will just keep your brain in that creativity. Each creative touch builds on itself and can come out in any time!
Creativity prompt: How to write a melody? Start singing!
Creativity prompt: How to write a melody? Start singing!
To write a melody, sing and record yourself doing it. Listen back. Try not to edit it. It's okay if you think you might know it from somewhere else— just sing what you're hearing "and the best music comes that way." - Tim Brey
Taxi
Airport? Airport?Heading to the airport?Taxi
I am, and I nod to the taxi driver whose English is just fine, but he’s apologizing for its brokenness anyway.
A polite exchange of niceties as he lifts my suitcase into the trunk, andI clamber into the back seat.An awkward scoot,A buckled belt,A glance at directions,And off we go.
Another apology for broken English, as he asks where I’m from.
The United States.
And he’s from Greece.Not as far from here as the United States, but far enough from home.
And next thing I know,He’s sharing his life story.This 81-year-old taxi driver.From Greece.From Samos. From Kokkari.Where it’s blue and beautiful, Sunny and no worries.
And now he’s here, in Frankfurt,For 74 years,Since he was young.And he shares his story, a full life, often sad,But he still hopes.He still loves.
And he asks whether I’m married, if I have “a boy” back home.And I do.
Well, then you come to Samos. To Kokkari.You live your dream.You visit the blue, the beautiful,The sun, with no worries.
by Hayley J. Boyle
Creativity Prompt: Daily Words
Creativity Prompt: Daily Words
This creativity prompt comes from Hayley, who used a word-a-day generator as inspiration to write the poem "Taxi," featured in this issue.
This November, tap into your creative side and make writing a daily habit. Hayley has provided a unique word, inspired by past issues of Wild Greens, for every day of November to spark your imagination.
When trying these prompts, embrace imperfection. Don't worry about quality; just get the words down. You can write anything you want. You could try creating:
A poem (any form, any length)
A snippet of a story (a few lines of dialogue, a descriptive paragraph, a scene sketch)
A concept or an idea for a future project (a character profile, a world-building note, a plot summary)
Creative Necessities
Creative Necessities
by Hayley J. Boyle
Watercolor
Inspiration: I asked all of our editorial team what their "need to haves" were when sitting down to create—and painted those things for our cover this month! Drinking coffee and tea from a favorite mug, listening to music via vinyl or ear buds, and tracking ideas and notes in trusty MD notebooks all give a sneak peek into the creative process for our team.
If you like the issue, you can donate to Wild Greens through our Ko-fi page!
Artists and Contributors
Artists and Contributors
Maggie Topel
Maggie Topel
Artist
Artist
Maggie Topel (she/her) is an artist and writer living in Philadelphia. She designs our seasonal Wild Greens logos and social media avatar.
Tim Brey
Tim Brey
Music Editor
Music Editor
Tim Brey (he/him) is a jazz pianist living in Philadelphia. He holds positions as Artist-in-Residence and Adjunct Faculty at Temple University and West Chester University, where he teaches jazz piano, music theory, and improvisation. Check out more of his music and his performance schedule at https://www.timbreymusic.com.
Jessica Doble
Jessica Doble
Poetry Editor
Poetry Editor
Jessica Doble (she/her) holds a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She's published two critical works: “Hope in the Apocalypse: Narrative Perspective as Negotiation of Structural Crises in Salvage the Bones” in Xavier Review, and “Two-Sides of the Same Witchy Coin: Re-examining Belief in Witches through Jeannette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate” in All About Monsters. Her poetry has appeared in PubLab and Wild Greens magazine.
Myra Chappius
Myra Chappius
Poetry Editor and Copyeditor
Poetry Editor and Copyeditor
Myra Chappius (she/her) is the author of six works of fiction and poetry. While her passion lies with shorter creations, it is her aspiration to complete a full-length novel and screenplay someday. She enjoys reading, tennis, cinema, live music, and seeing the world. When not doing mom things, she is working full-time, learning yet another language, and planning her next adventure.
Her work can be purchased on Amazon.
Jacqueline Ruvalcaba
Jacqueline Ruvalcaba
Senior Editor
Senior Editor
Jacqueline (she/her) edits fiction and nonfiction as the senior editor for Wild Greens magazine. She earned her BA in English and creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and completed training as a 2021 publishing fellow with the Los Angeles Review of Books. She previously served as a co-editor for PubLab, editor for UCR's Mosaic Art and Literary Journal, and as an intern with Soho Press. In her free time, she loves to read all kinds of stories, including YA, literary fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy.
Hayley Boyle
Hayley Boyle
Arts Editor
Arts Editor
Hayley (she/her) creates the cover image for every issue of Wild Greens and serves as the Arts Editor. Hayley is a social justice seeker, world traveler, rock climber, dog snuggler, frisbee player, event planner, and storyteller. She loves to paint with watercolors, embroider, and write. She grew up reading sci-fi and fantasy, and, to this day, she still turns to those genres to help her make sense of the world. She calls Philadelphia home where she lives with her husband Evan and dog Birdie, and she wouldn't have it any other way. You can find Hayley on Instagram @hayley3390.
Rebecca Lipperini
Rebecca Lipperini
Editor-in-chief
Editor-in-chief
Rebecca Lipperini (she/her) is a writer, teacher, and academic living in Philadelphia, and the founding editor of Wild Greens magazine. She holds a PhD in English from Rutgers University, where she taught all kinds of classes on literature and poetry and writing, and wrote all kinds of papers on the same. Her essay on the soothing aesthetics of the supermarket was recently published in PubLab. She teaches in the Critical Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
You can find Rebecca on Instagram @rebeccalipperini (personal) @wildgreensmag (you already know it).
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