fall 2023

editor’s note

Hi there.

I am delighted to share the fall issue of coalitionworks! This time last year the coalition had just released its first issue. Now, here we are celebrating one whole year of this little journal! Unreal.

This fifth issue of coalitionworks signals a turning point for the magazine. A broadening of the palette. I have always been drawn to dissonance all around us and the deeply human impulse to craft meaning from it. Previous issues of the journal felt a bit orderly to me, due to their singular theme. I am glad to have had a year’s runway to be joyfully absurd, but moving forward, coalitionworks issues will have multiple themes, starting with this one. So here we go: Multiple themes are here to usher beautiful imbalance to the whole thing, and it’s what I’ve been yearning for coalitionworks all along.

There is a random quality in this assortment. Imbalance. It is sometimes unhinged in its lack of transition. We have here Erratic Thematic™ shifts concerning human frailty to the intimate austere to lush environmental worries and other gradients of hopelessness. It’s fair to say there’s plenty of futility in this issue, we succeeded! …Aside from my thematic acrobatics, however, the writing remains centerstage and ever humane in the face of cataclysm and heartbreak, no matter the scope. That throughline carries us from poem to fiction to random experiments whether contributed by early writers or seasoned wordsmiths. And so, it now occurs to me, as I doggedly flee from unifying themes and throughlines, that I have inevitably stumbled upon them again. I guess I’m still human, constantly seeking theme and pattern and order. Good to know!

I am beyond grateful to our coalitionists for the two most precious gifts you have shared with me, your time and your brilliant writing.

And thank you, dear reader, for supporting our efforts.

Much love,

j