LRR 2022

Long River Review has made it to the quarter-century mark! Twenty-five years: our silver jubilee, our semi-semicentennial, and perhaps most importantly, the official mark of a new generation for our literary journal. As our team celebrates the 25th year of the Long River Review going to print, it only seems appropriate that our journal also hosts a celebration o f resilience and perseverance.

When the editors first gathered in the winter to decide the theme for this year’s issue, we all collectively agreed to choose a word that would reflect the hardships, growth, and self-discovery of these past few years. Of course, we found that one word wasn’t enough. Resilience and perseverance go hand-in-hand, and we want to shine a light on stories about those who have bounced back from hardships, as well as those who have then summoned the bravery to keep moving.

Resilience is not the light at the end of the tunnel, just as perseverance isn’t the first breath you take after you stand up from the fight. These strengths emerge in the heart of conflict and can be harnessed in a myriad of different ways: deciding to stand up for yourself and your home against intruders; dedicating your energy to living with a mental or physical illness; or even persistently restoring your culture against eh attempts of those in power to erase it.

Resilience and perseverance are in the active choices you make each day to keep trying, push forward, and take the next step—no matter how grueling the effort is to lift your legs.

The mantra “I just have to make it through today” seems to be something I’ve found myself clinging to more and more, especially over these past couple of years. Our world is in constant flux, and the way the tides turn to batter us against the rocks looks differently for all of us. All artists come to the page or the canvas with their own stories, carrying scars in all stages of healing and hard-won victories of varying gravities.

With this new generation of the Long River Review, I look forward to seeing what emerging voices will crack through the concrete to share their stories with those of us who are lucky enough to read them.

After all, resilience and perseverance are not always found in the fight; sometimes, the recovery just takes picking up a pen.