Issue 16: Celebrating 5 Years!

Anniversaries are cause for celebration—not quiet, not sighed.

Book of Matches welcomes Issue 16 as the mark of 5 years keeping promises to honor, welcome, and praise the bravery of words made manifest in its pages. There is marble and iron freezing under our fingers in the January hours ahead, but by this fire, these pages, warms gifts unravel their ribbons and beckon you to stay a long, long while.

Unlace your boots and wriggle tendons closer to these embers. There are wolves outside guarding your peace and assuring you time to linger with poems, stories, and to take communion through image.

Issue 16 carries an emboss of Yes, a rising of ink under palms, a declaration of Forward. May the next 5 years mean widening river banks for our collective huts to give gratitude to the sun that warms their roofs.  

Please use the download link(s) below for both the .PDF and FlipBook versions. Please also take some time to link this page. Share far and wide across your social media platforms and in any other spaces you wish! Digital FlipBook: https://online.fliphtml5.com/qoqiq/Issue-16-Winter-2026/ High-Quality .PDF:

Issue 16 Winter - 2026.pdf

Download PDF • 3.04MB

Submissions for Issue 17 open January 15th, 2026. Please refer to our submissions page for complete guidelines.

With Gratitude,

Kelli & Nicholas

COVER ARTWORK: "Y lleuad a’r sêr" by Jennifer M. Griggs [jmgriggs.art@gmail.com]