ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.– We all deceive, whether or not we care to admit it—denial often being yet another form of deception. We deceive ourselves as well as others. People of every age and stripe—whether rarely or often, on purpose or unknowingly—dissimulate, exaggerate, bluff, and beguile. Conjunctions:65, Sleights of Hand—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College— gathers a wide spectrum of essays, fiction, and poetry on the subject of deception, exploring a world in which truth is a most fragile, elaborate, and mercurial thing. Edited by Conjunctions editor, novelist, and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, Sleights of Hand includes new work from such leading contemporary writers as James Morrow, Laura van den Berg, Porochista Khakpour, Can Xue, Joyce Carol Oates, Edie Meidav, Eleni Sikelianos, Terese Svoboda, Yannick Murphy, Peter Straub, and Paul West, among others.
 
“The stories, novellas, poems, and essays in Sleights of Hand investigate the myriad masks behind which we hide, hoping to create an alternative reality in the eyes of our beholders,” writes Morrow. “Some of these works operate within the realm of the fantastic, where the artistic imagination is least fettered, while others take a level-eyed approach, staring down a difficult subject many would prefer to avoid. This is not a preachy gathering, however, and while I imagine readers will recognize aspects of themselves here and there, as often as not these writers discover wildly fresh ways of exploring a classic theme.”
 
Sleights of Hand also features new work from Rae Armantrout, Gabriel Blackwell, Susan Daitch,  Anthony Discenza, Margaret Fisher, Karen Gernant, Arielle Greenberg, Paul Hoover, Gwyneth Merner, Andrew Mossin, Bin Ramke, Michael Martin Shea, Aurelie Sheehan, Michael Sheehan, and Magdalena Zyzak.