Feels Blind Literary, Issue #8
Winter 2022

Winter 2022 Contributors

Note from the Editor in Chief

Dear Readers,

We are thrilled to share with you Issue #8 of Feels Blind Literary. We took a longer than intended hiatus since last publishing, but I promise you this was mostly for phenomenal reasons. I moved to Charm City; accepted an exciting new job; launched Claudia Kishi Forever, a business designed to help writers navigate the publication process; and signed a contract for my debut YA novel, The Most Cake, which is slated to drop in 2023. Managing Editor Emily Kelly also switched jobs and has been focused on her own writing. In addition to working for a nonprofit aimed to increase community literacy, Senior Editor Kayla Aldrich finished drafting her second novel and she is entering the query stage. Senior Editor Delaney Burk is in the final year of a MFA program studying fiction. She’s been immersed in teaching, thesis work, and publishing awesome stories like “Beholder” in Grimoire Magazine. This list barely touches the surface of the ways we’ve all grown, changed, and been challenged over the past nine months.

But real talk—there were moments when we considered tabling Feels Blind Literary for longer or putting a pin in the project for good. We figured we had an amazing run, publishing authors with necessary voices and raising money for nonprofits doing important activist work. This thought was fleeting, however. There will never stop being important activist work to do or emerging writers who need a platform. In fact, we’re stoked to be publishing our first ever high school student in this issue! We kept coming back to how much we love the community we’re building and the communities we’re supporting, as well as how much we don’t want to stop building and supporting those communities. Every time one of our contributors publishes a novel or chapbook, stages a play, or has a piece accepted in another literary magazine, we toast to their success. A few publications from this past year alone include Melissa Johnson’s chapbook, Cancer Voodoo; Aimee Nicole’s poetry collection, Daily Worship; VA Smith’s poetry collection, Biking Through the Stone Age;  and Kaleena Madruga’s collection of essays, Does It Hurt?. One of these essays, “Emily Sweet is a Fucking Idiot,” was first published in Feels Blind Literary Issue #6. I’m also looking forward to Jane V. Blunschi’s forthcoming novella, Mon Dieu, Love. While we published an excerpt from this piece in Issue #7, I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing an advance copy of the full manuscript and I encourage all of our readers to preorder this book because it is brilliant.

And more real talk- I love our Feels Blind team BIG. When we have brunches that start at noon and end well after dark because we enjoy each other’s company that much, it’s apparent it would be nothing short of foolishness to give up on such magic. Our editors and interns inspire me. I’m lucky to work with them. I’m even luckier to call them friends.

All of this is to say, Feels Blind Literary is here to stay. Our first batch of zines raising money for survivors of intimate partner violence still are available for purchase through our website: Shannon Frost Greenstein’s “Sleep Deprivation Was Banned by the Geneva Convention, You Know” illustrated by Annabelle Starr, Madison Gray’s “She Stepped into the Ocean” illustrated by Emily Belson, Tricia Leaf’s “The Buddy System” illustrated by Kelly Zhao, Brigette Pugh’s “Stray” illustrated by I.R. Sheppard, and Theresa Ronquillo’s “Holiday Guests” illustrated by Atieh Zanganeh. We also submitted our Pushcart Nominations for 2022. Congratulations to Lilia Snowfield Anderson, Jane Blunschi, Chelsey Clammer, Patricia Smith, VA Smith, and Julene Tripp Weaver. We have lots of plans in the works as well, including literary events and readings, an exciting contest, and collaborating with our new design interns for Issue #9. AWP Seattle also is on our radar. We had so much fun in Philly last year that we’re ready to do it all over again.

We hope you enjoy reading Issue #8. We can’t wait to see what’s next for us and you.

XO, Lindsay
Editor in Chief