Letter from the Editors
Dear Readers,
Issue 26 is here and we – Associate Editors Stephanie, Kayla, and Rebecca – are thrilled to see it in its completed form. It’s a beautiful issue, full of heartbreak and hope, devastation and growth. It’s an incredible compilation of work from talented writers and artists that we are honored to publish.
We chose the three taglines: transitional spaces; reclaiming painful narratives; and nature and grieving. We found a lot of pieces involving a sense of change, movement from one part of life to another in works like “In the Bathroom” by Faith McNaughton and “Small Words” by Kathleen McGookey. Additionally, many of these works are of pain and heartbreak, but conquered by a sense of hope or finding peace within nature. Joanna Acevedo’s, “Prosopagnosia” and Mary Makofske’s “What Would Grow in Hitler’s Garden” show much of these themes.
Especially exciting, is that we get to travel to Seattle for the AWP Conference and show it off to a community of writers. We’ll be meeting with a few of our contributing artists and writers which feels like we’ll be meeting celebrities.
Issue 26 is here and we – Associate Editors Stephanie, Kayla, and Rebecca – are thrilled to see it in its completed form. It’s a beautiful issue, full of heartbreak and hope, devastation and growth. It’s an incredible compilation of work from talented writers and artists that we are honored to publish.
We chose the three taglines: transitional spaces; reclaiming painful narratives; and nature and grieving. We found a lot of pieces involving a sense of change, movement from one part of life to another in works like “In the Bathroom” by Faith McNaughton and “Small Words” by Kathleen McGookey. Additionally, many of these works are of pain and heartbreak, but conquered by a sense of hope or finding peace within nature. Joanna Acevedo’s, “Prosopagnosia” and Mary Makofske’s “What Would Grow in Hitler’s Garden” show much of these themes.
Especially exciting, is that we get to travel to Seattle for the AWP Conference and show it off to a community of writers. We’ll be meeting with a few of our contributing artists and writers which feels like we’ll be meeting celebrities.
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The three of us loved the themes of grief and growth throughout the issue. Some creative nonfiction favorites for all of us were “Teeth” by Chelsea M. Carney and “Future Girl” by Ted McLoof.
Rebecca Green, as a poet herself, enjoying helping select the poetry from this issue while serving as Poetry Editor in the fall of 2022. Her favorite of these poems is “A Thrift Store Cup with Blue Lotus” by Devon Brock. There’s a beauty and sadness to this poem that she adores. We love that we get to feature so much art in this issue. Kayla Fratello especially loves the contrast in “Glass on Windowsill” and “Balconies, Italy” by E. O. Connors. “Glass on Windowsill” has a certain quality of loneliness, but also a glistening hope. “Balconies, Italy” shows a private world of people isolated in their own apartments. Stephanie Ciecierski loves the fiction piece “The Principal and the Sea,” which is almost like poetry mixed with prose. She is also obsessed with the collage artwork from Catherine Edgerton, especially “13th Amendment” which shows the conflict between the idea of freedom and being free. As you can see, it's difficult to select a favorite! We hope you love this issue as much as we do and hope to see some readers and writers at the AWP Conference this month. Stephanie Ciecierski, Kayla Fratello, & Rebecca Green Associate Editors |
