by Crystal Sands, editor

Each issue of Farmer-ish is a collection of carefully-selected pieces that reflect a variety of genres on themes so important to our journal. Published pieces are selected from approximately 100 submission for each online issue and our print annual. Each and every piece published is so important and special, so selecting just six pieces from both our online issues and robust print annual from 2021 proved to be a particular challenge. But The Pushcart Prize allows just six submissions from each literary journal or magazine, so we were forced to make the difficult decision, as it is important, we believe, to nominate our authors for such important opportunities.
Those selected show a range in Farmer-ish content, as well as genre, and are pieces that send important messages about our human experiences and connections with land, humans, and nature. Without further ado, here are the six nominees for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.
2022 Pushcart Nominees
“Eat. Pray. Rain.” by Lauren Kessler, essay, Fall 2021 Issue
“I have come to realize the privilege of rain.”
“Pandemic Pumpkins” by Barbara Quick, poetry, 2021 Print Annual
“Who’s to say a seed won’t wait/three years or even ten?”
“Family Recipes” by Sarah Kilch Gaffney, poetry, Fall 2021 Issue
“and I still only trust/the recipes she’s given me”
“Between a Wreckage and an Eden” by Katharyn Privett-Duren, essay, Spring 2021 Issue
“My grandma has become the wind that brings spring back around, winding through the pines that guarded our home through the winter nights.”
“One Pandemic Spring Garden” by Anuja Ghimire, essay, 2021 Print Annual
“One night and then another, my plants visited my dreams.”
“During the Drought” by Emily Franklin, poetry, 2021 Print Annual
“I would like to wake up tomorrow and have it be summer/again the way in memory it is often that hazy bug-strewn time”