Issue #77

It’s March Madness, which is the marketing phrase the NCAA uses to promote its annual collegiate men’s and women’s basketball tournament. I participated in a pool with some of my musician friends, but my brackets broke apart on day two of round two. I’m not good at these sportsing things; I was more of a band nerd. There has also been some weather madness across the United States in the first few months of 2025 – wild fires, blizzards, floods, and tornadoes. Here in Iowa last week, we had two days of sunny, 70+ degree temperatures followed by a blizzard the next day.

There is also madness in the United States. Since our last issue in December, the newly installed administration has nominated, and received confirmation for, a Fox News personality to head the Department of Defense, a Kennedy family member who promotes vaccine misinformation to lead the Department of Health and Human Services while his father and uncle roll over in their graves, a reality TV star running the Department of Transportation, and the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tasked with driving the Department of Education into the ground. All of this is to say nothing about a dysfunctional Congress, and an unelected chainsaw wielding tech billionaire breaking his way into government offices and laying off staff who administer critical services that veterans and others depend on. It is, indeed, madness.

But what, you ask, does this have to do with Issue 77 of Mud Season Review? The only constant in this chaos is art, and this is what MSR strives to bring you with each issue (art, not chaos). The authors and artists featured in this issue demonstrate the power and resiliency of what writing, photography, and different art mediums can bring to us as they also challenge us to shake up our thinking and consider different perspectives. Sarah McKinley asks us to consider whether we would rather lose our best friend or our lives through a series of situations. Skylar Miklus gives us a poetry collection that is direct and sometimes a bit jarring. M.C. Schmidt reveals a character struggling to make sense of the chaos in her own life as she learns that her parents have become You Tube stars and her sword swallowing boyfriend would rather spend Christmas with his family than with her. Phi Phi An, our featured artist, presents us with a “pilgrimage of a sort, a quest for revelation” through the lens of a 35mm analog camera.

This year, Mud Season Review celebrates its tenth anniversary. Our founding editors, Rebecca Starks and Danielle Thierry, will be our guest editors for Issue 79 (September). Our team looks forward to working with them.

Thank you for reading and being part of the Mud Season Review community.

Suzanne Guess, MFA
Editor in Chief
Mud Season Review