Volume 12

Editor’s Note

The spring of 2020 finds us facing threats to our democracy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, as I write this, has people washing their hands and social distancing in the face of a crown-shaped virus, hoping to ward off illness. But we are already an imperiled culture, our membranes torn by a forever war, immigration and refugee horrors, gender, color and class inequities, false news, and baseless, ignorant tweets. Our salvation, our cure, lies in the power of the word. If a doctor’s mantra is Do no harm, a writer’s mantra is Write to the power of the word. As one of our supporters wrote, “If there is a way forward, it must come from the sort of thinking and humanistic engagement done in the pages of CONSEQUENCE.”

This issue of CONSEQUENCE features powerful narratives by established and emerging writers, all aimed at widening the conversation about the crises we face. In these pages you’ll find prose and poems that will engage and change you, words that will get you talking, building community.

Every December I host a party, gathering family, friends, and colleagues, all of us passionately engaged in celebrating our accomplishments and charting a course for the coming year. At the last party I trotted past CONSEQUENCE’s Founding Editor George Kovach, leaning into a framed, limited-edition poem. He turned and looked at me, and smiled. Surely he remembered the time we lunched with the bear-like poet who wrote of culture wars in a time of war, handmade shoes, and going—I certainly did. After that lunch, George asked me to join him editing CONSEQUENCE, and so I went with the magazine and its critical conversation about the culture and consequences of war, humbled to be working with a man as dedicated and compassionate as George. Our collaboration was a rare match, George with his poetry, me with my prose. As editors, we stood before you, arms wide open, eager to read your work. We worked, we walked, we paced, and every year for more than a decade we brought you this magazine. It was and is a labor of love. It’s an honor to have worked with George, and it’s a privilege to take on CONSEQUENCE. So, here I go walking in my friend George’s shoes. Walk with me.

—Catherine Parnell