Letter from the Editor

 

I started this letter on Juneteenth, in the evening after watching a streamed production of the Voices of Women Concert Series in celebration of Civil Rights activist Coretta Scott King. The event was presented by the Vegas City Opera and the League of Women Voters, adapted by Dr. Richard L. Hodges, and performed by actress and opera singer Carmen Artis and a quartet of singers. It was produced in February at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center in Las Vegas. 

Months later after the debut performance, audiences at home in various phases of quarantining and isolation were able to experience and learn from this beautiful show. Over the past few months arts and culture agencies and organizations, and artists have shared their work with us in new ways so that we might stay connected with our communities through beauty and civic engagement. Thank you.

At this same time across America, protesters are still fighting against current and longstanding, unaddressed racial injustices, and the killing of Black Americans. We quieted our social media over the past weeks to listen, but hear us as we say, Black lives matter. In the words of Coretta Scott King, “Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”

This season marks our new fiscal year which begins the first of July. Each summer after the issue goes live we set our goals for the next twelve months. We have already started looking critically at how we promote calls for submissions, and how we select publications and books for review. 

The Citron Review acknowledges that Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) writers are underrepresented in publishing, and as a literary journal we have a platform and responsibility to do our part to change that. We know that begins by looking at our own numbers and processes. 

We were still preparing our spring issue when this production occurred, just a few weeks before the shelter-in-place order for Nevada. Since then the pandemic has brought immeasurable loss and uncertainty to lives around the world.  It also activated losses and traumas many of us were already carrying. We felt this weight in the submissions this cycle, but we also saw more work that invited readers closer into view of personal relationships and daily life.

Our summer issue also marks the last round of stories for Creative Nonfiction Editor Nathan Elliott. He is an incredibly talented writer and editor. We are grateful for his contributions to Citron, and we will miss him.

On behalf of The Citron Review, thank you for taking the time to visit these summer stories. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we do. 

Sincerely,

Angela M. Brommel
Editor-in-Chief
The Citron Review

 

Masthead

 

Table of Contents

 

Poetry

Notes on the selections by Eric Steineger

Despy Boutris	Litany with Downpour
Shome Dasgupta	Know No Better | Bones
JR Rhine	Soft Palms
Ace Boggess	Occupation
Connie Wasem Scott	Tarot Reading: The Hanged Man (Inverted)

Creative Nonfiction

Notes on the selections by Marianne Woods Cirone

Christina Simon	The Only Place I Could Live is Here
Sayantika Mandal	Mothballs
Holly Hagman	Carousel
Marlene Olin	Running on Empty
Eileen Vorbach Collins	Weltschmerz
Sarah Cedeño	re·turn
Dana De Greff	This is How You Say Conflict

Flash Fiction

Notes on the selections by Elizabeth De Arcos

Daniel Johnson	Oisín
Allie Mariano	You Scamper
Anna Gates Ha	Oarfish
Jared Graham	From the City of Things Finished
Mandira Pattnaik	Semicolon
Sarah Starr Murphy	Joyride

Micros

Notes on the selections by JR Walsh

Cathy Ulrich	Your Girlfriend as a Radium Watch Face
Erin Jamieson	Clothesline
Howie Good	Sunday Blues
John Linstrom	Dianthus Clavelina, Sprout!
Virginia Eggerton	Unmoored | Transfusion
Alyssa Jordan	Start Again