Issue #81

Dear MSR Readers:

I’ve started this issue’s editor letter several times. With each attempt, I can only pull a few sentences out of my brain because words are failing me as I try to make sense of what I see happening in the U.S.

In December’s letter, I wrote about watching the old Hollywood movies more than usual to provide a bit of a respite from:

… brown people being abducted off streets, in schools, at work, and at home simply because they are brown; the partial destruction of the People’s House; the renaming of a building that honors an assassinated president; the suppression of free speech that the current administration finds inconvenient or uncomfortable; women’s rights being rolled back to the 1950s–or earlier; the sex trafficking of young girls by rich and powerful men; an HHS secretary who ignores science and puts people at risk; and gerrymandering in several states designed to keep [career] politicians in power.

Since then, these situations have progressively worsened. Citizens were murdered in Minneapolis streets by aggressive ICE agents using excessive force as well as tear gas and flash-bang devices against protesters exercising their First Amendment rights to gather peacefully while expressing their opinions that criticize government. We watched an elderly man dragged out of his house into freezing temperatures wearing only his underwear and a five-year-old boy used as bait to try to gain access to his home where his mother was. Renee Good and Alex Pretti, murdered by ICE agents, were labeled by DHS officials as “domestic terrorists.” Jonathan Ross, the agent who murdered Renee Good, was recorded saying “Fucking bitch” after he shot her in the head. Alex Pretti carried a pistol (for which he had a legal permit) but his empty hands in the air when he was shot. DHS officials labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist” as a rationale for murdering him. Their logic is something like, citizens with guns are a threat. But Pretti’s right to carry a gun is exactly what the gun lobby argues-citizens should have guns. Feel the hypocrisy?

And now we are in an illegal war no one wanted and that the president called a “little excursion,” an excursion that has killed 13 U.S. soldiers to date. An excursion with no strategic goal, no exit plan. An excursion backed by a Congressional delegation that is too scared of being the subject of mean tweets than to vote against reigning in this administration. An excursion with a $1 billion dollar a day price tag, yet there’s no money to reinstate the healthcare marketplace tax credits for those losing insurance–something I have personal experience with. My tax credits allowed me to pay $100 per month for a policy that was similar to what my former employer offered. When the credits expired, my monthly premium jumped to $1,200 per month. I cancelled it.

I sat down with my parents the other day–my 94-year-old mother and my 98-year-old father who is a veteran of WWII and the Korean War. I asked them about the events that have taken place in their lifetimes. The Depression, WWII, the Korean War, television, the moon landing, and Watergate came up.

Watergate ruined the careers of many and imprisoned others, and rightly so. It forced the resignation of Richard M. Nixon. I remember the television broadcast of his resignation, not because of what it meant but what I was missing. My family was on vacation in Kansas City to visit Worlds of Fun, but there would be no fun on August 8, 1974, as the TV was tuned to network news. Watergate and its cover up are rounding errors compared to the corruption and cover ups of this administration.

I am a student of history; I wear a pin on my denim jacket that says “History Nerd.” The Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Lincoln on November 19, 1863, is one of my favorite speeches. It’s more prophetic than Lincoln probably imagined it would be. It reads:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

Indeed.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for indulging me. In return, I invite you to escape the chaos and enjoy Issue #81 of Mud Season Review. We feature a stellar collection of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art. “Galaxies,” fiction by Franz Neumann, will take you many difference places. As one of our fiction reviewers commented, this story is a “well-written statement about everything, everywhere, all at once.” Our poetry portfolio by Jasmine Vallejo-Love is a raw representation of the poet’s struggles with mental and physical health challenges. “Pugilism,” nonfiction by Barrett Bowlin, records the death of his parents told through snapshots and flashbacks of family history that surface as a result of cleaning out the family home. Our art portfolio is a collection of digital illustrations by Jiaqi Liu. Her work documents the fragility of memory that’s reflected through her mother’s Alzheimer’s progression. We also feature art by Nicole Javorksy, Jack Bord, and Sean Bw Parker.

Mud Season Review would not be the publication it is without the writers and artists who submit their best work to us. Our jobs are challenging because of the high caliber of work we receive, but we consider that challenge a privilege.

All the best,

Suzanne Guess, MFA
Editor in Chief