EDITOR'S LETTER

This is my first issue as Editor-in-Chief. I am nervous because I want this issue to make a difference. I want this issue to do what I wish all of my writing does for me: to speak for itself. I want this issue to make a difference in the lives of the writers Gordon Square Review is publishing; I want this issue to make a difference in the lives of the writers Gordon Square Review will one day publish. As Editor-in-Chief, I am following in footsteps I hope I can fill.

During the first iteration of this letter, I sat in a café just west of home wishing that I could do this issue, this journal, and every writer, reader, and editor justice.

During the second iteration of this letter, I am sitting in a café just east of home and wishing the same. My wish for this issue – regardless of where I am – remains the same: for it to do well. I want it to do right – it being something I am not deliberately aware of yet. I want the editorial choices we made – while crafting this issue together with voices from around the world – to make a difference in the world. 

In the first iteration of this letter, I wrote and rewrote my introduction to find a clean way to introduce the main ideas behind every poem and prose piece that make up issue 11 of Gordon Square Review. Eventually, I sat aside all of my failed attempts to draw the texts together and asked myself: what am I trying to say here? I leaned back in my chair and took a few deep breaths and that is when I saw it. 

On the wall, adjacent to my seat in this café a little east of home, there is a royal blue flag rimmed in gold. In the middle of the flag are white block letters that read “Trust the Process.” So here I am, in the second iteration of this letter, trusting the process, putting down one word at a time, forming one sentence at a time. I wanted, because it felt customary, because it felt like tradition, to drop spoilers about each of the pieces published in this issue but I refuse. My refusal is not one to do the work of finding a throughline, but one of telling you – whoever you are and wherever you might be – what each piece means and why it matters. So here I am, trusting the process, letting go of control and inviting you to find the throughline of the poems, the essays, the stories in issue 11 for yourself. 
​
Jason Harris
Editor-in-Chief

Jason Harris is an editor, teaching artist, and writer. He has received fellowships from The Watering Hole and Twelve Literary Arts. To read more of his work, you may visit his website: https://jasonharriswriter.com/. His Twitter handle is @ecopoems.​