Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

For some, there's a belief that the only thing that happens in the great expanse of the Middle East is one blood-soaked, catastrophic war after another. This over-generalization undoubtedly has some of its roots in the fact that conflict is, unfortunately, a common reality in the region, but to hear certain groups talk about it (and not just those on the far right), one might mistakenly think that from the first moment people settled on the Arabian peninsula or along the Mediterranean Sea, they became violent and haven't let a single second pass without trying to murder each other.

As we put this volume together, we talked about this typecasting as a number of us have family or friends in that part of the world but also because so many of the pieces in this issue spoke to the complex experiences and realities of conflict. Through our previous experiences with war-related simplifications, we know that when these complexities are reduced, overlooked, or outright ignored, people miss an opportunity not only to gain a fuller understanding of these experiences and realities but also to help dispel these misrepresentations.

This opportunity to understand and dispel are two of the biggest reasons why we are especially excited about the work in this volume. From "The Philosophy of Escape'' where the speaker wrestles with the guilt of fleeing his war-torn home to "Nora's Wedding," which follows a Jewish woman as she unexpectedly finds family and love in Germany to "Gertie's Labyrinth" with its children who use make-believe to parse reality, each piece of prose, poetry, and visual art in this issue seemingly goes out of its way to forefront these complexities and nuances.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for being a part of this community.

Sincerely,
The Editors

Fiction: A. Molotkov, Matt Gulley, Daniel Seifert, M.R. Lehman Wiens, Forest Arthur Ormes, Eoin Meagher

Nonfiction: Clayton Bradshaw-Mittal, Lydia Kann, Bashir Sakhawarz, Ali Motamedi, J.G.P. MacAdam, Jennifer Lang

Translations: Lisette Lombé (tr. Margaret Morrison), Yonatan Berg (tr. Joanna Chen), Mohammad Ibrahim Nawaya (tr. Katharine Halls), Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (tr. Aysel K. Basci), Octavio Escobar Giraldo (tr. D. P. Snyder)

Poetry: Prosper Ìféányí, Michael Imossan, Laura Apol, Jonathan Ukah, Susanna Lang, Debasish Mishra, Don Pomerantz, Bruce Weigel, Mara Lee Grayson, Catalina Florescu, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Mickie Kennedy, George Witte, Christianne Goodwin, M.M. Kelly, Jack Morillo, Carrie Beyer, Lorraine Bruno Arsenault, Jan LaPerle, C.J. Anderson-Wu

Visual Art: Michael Thompson