EDITOR'S LETTER

Write-a-Thon & Launch Party: Join us the weekend of December 3-5 for Gordon Square Review’s Fall Write-a-Thon. Take part in writing sessions, editor Q&As, networking sessions, an editor roundtable, or just focus on generating new work. All sessions are held virtually over Zoom, and participants will also have access to a Slack channel. Finally, the launch party for Issue 9 will take place during the Write-a-Thon on Saturday, December 4 at 7pm ET. Register for the Write-a-Thon here.
 
I’m writing this letter at my dining room table the day before Thanksgiving, so you might say I have food on the brain. Which is appropriate, because Issue 9 is packed with pieces about hunger, strange foods, and characters both starved and rapacious. We’ve got hungry ghosts, bitter herbs, zombie fare, beer-basted beef, and fridges full of venison. But Issue 9 isn’t all literal sustenance—we’ve also got birdmen, mirrors, great lakes, ripe nights, and the evolutionary process of trees.
 
As with every issue of GSR, and probably every issue of every lit mag ever, Issue 9 is largely a labor of love made possible by our editors as well as the volunteer readers who helped us read and consider hundreds of submissions. On the poetry side, Poetry Editor Jason Harris was assisted by readers Zaire Hall-Hamilton, Donna Hunt, Nina Palattella, and Barbara Marie Minney; Prose Editor Nardine Taleb worked with Jo M. Goren, Joelle Reizes, and Hannah Williams. We are so grateful for the efforts and imagination these readers contributed to help make Issue 9 possible.
 
On the editorial mentorship front, Jason worked with Alanna Shaikh, Nardine worked with Joanne Lozar Glenn, and I worked with Karim Ragab. We each conferred with our respective writers to discuss revision and to help prepare their submissions for publication, all while being sure to honor the writer’s vision. Additionally, mentees Ragab and Shaikh are among the Northeast Ohio writers we’re spotlighting this issue, along with KJ Cerankowski and Mallory Rader.
 
Our Youth Outlet partner is Writers in Residence, a nonprofit organization that teaches creative writing to youth who are incarcerated. Through its writing workshops offered in juvenile detention centers, Writers in Residence strives to increase literacy levels, build self-esteem, provide positive peer mentorship, cultivate young writers into published authors, and advocate for youth who are incarcerated. Thank you to Zachary Thomas at Writers in Residence for partnering with GSR for Issue 9 and for sharing this important work with our audience.

Youth Outlet Update 12/1/21: The day before this issue went live, one of the participating juvenile detention centers expressed discomfort with their residents’ work being published by GSR as part of the Youth Outlet section, even if the authors were credited by first name only and without identifying any specific facility. We were dismayed to learn of this decision, especially considering that the Youth Outlet section exists to celebrate and amplify the voices of young writers. When given the chance to celebrate the artistic work of its residents, to encourage creativity and imagination, and to support residents’ very humanity, the center chose instead to reject this opportunity without cause—a move I struggle to interpret beyond an attempt to further control or oppress incarcerated minors. Together with Writers in Residence, we decided to publish these pieces anonymously in order to support the voices of these young writers. For more information about juvenile incarceration, or to learn how you can support the cause, visit the Writers in Residence website. 
 
Finally, our cover art is by Ava Carr, an undergraduate at Kent State University. We came across Ava’s work when our editorial staff was invited to a class visit with Brainchild. (Fun fact: we were invited by the professor who happens to be a past GSR contributor himself.) We’re honored to have Ava’s work grace our issue.
 
Thank you to Matt Weinkam and Michelle Smith at Literary Cleveland, along with the Literary Cleveland Board of Trustees. Now please, go read Issue 9—I hope you’ll find something there that feeds you.
 
Laura Maylene Walter
Editor in Chief

Laura Maylene Walter

Laura Maylene Walter is the editor in chief of Gordon Square Review. Her debut novel, Body of Stars, was published in 2021 by Dutton in the US and Hodder Studio in the UK. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Poets & Writers, The Sun, Slate, F(r)iction, The Masters Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She has been a Yaddo Fellow, a Tin House Writers’ Workshop Scholar, and the recipient of the Ohioana Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant. Laura teaches workshops for Literary Cleveland and is the Ohio Center for the Book Fellow at Cleveland Public Library.