Feels Blind Literary, Issue #10
Summer 2024

Summer 2024 Contributors

Note from the Editor in Chief

Dear Readers,

Though we took a bit of a hiatus between Issue #9 and Issue #10 of Feels Blind Literary, there never was a point when I felt like the break was forever. I have a habit of saying a lot has happened between issues, and this is never not true. Since our last publication, a Supreme Court Justice flew an insurrectionist flag over his home and placed all of the blame on his wife in true Conservative husband fashion, the former host of NBC’s Apprentice was found guilty of 34 felony counts tied to hush money he paid a sex worker to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, women’s reproductive freedom continues to be under assault in Republican-controlled states, college students from across the country set up encampments and called for universities to divest from companies advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza, and Taylor Swift dropped an anthology that felt like the musical equivalent to a Russian novel in length in the middle of a major world tour while also dropping a movie and booing up with a Super Bowl champ.

While the above kind of a lot always pushed me to act or sparked my creativity, the other kind of a lot I experienced since our last publication was personal and pushed me to press pause. My mother’s health declined sharply, and she died in early October. My husband and I are going through a divorce. My plans to adopt a child were put on hold indefinitely. My job and the community-engaged work that typically fed my soul wasn’t doing so. And while writing and projects like Feels Blind Literary have been my defaults for working through uncertainty and heartbreak, this time I felt like if I didn’t keep pushing through each day, stopping instead to reflect and create, it would break me.

This state of pushing through to ignore my grief and unhappiness went on for a while, but when I stepped inside the Lincoln Theatre in Washington D.C. in early May for Kathleen Hanna’s book tour for Rebel Girl, something inside of me broke open. At first, it felt like I was being confronted head-on by all of the ways I have failed. Maybe it’s because I was at a book launch even though I put on hold final edits for The Most Cake, my debut novel which is heavily inspired by Riot Grrrl, so much so its publication date was pushed back by a year? Maybe it’s because I set aside Feels Blind Literary, a magazine named after a Bikini Kill song, and I still was quite uncertain when I would return to it? Maybe it’s because I’ve always wanted to adopt a child or children once I turned 40, but here I was years later, still childless, listening to Kathleen talk lovingly about her adopted son? But in that moment of confronting what I thought were my biggest failures, I recognized that perhaps my only true failure was continuing to push through as if I were a machine and not a person. This wasn’t making me less broken. In fact, it was breaking me more.

As I settled into my seat that night, really listening to what Kathleen was saying and really listening to myself, I started hearing differently my perceived failures, my grief, and the ways I’ve responded to both. She talked about the long break she took while writing Rebel Girl, but also about the beauty of returning to a project years later with a better sense of what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it, a clarity I also was experiencing as I returned to my novel. And as she continued sharing stories about her child, I did the math and realized she was exactly my age now when she and her amazing partner adopted their son after many setbacks of their own including a miscarriage and her diagnosis with Lyme’s Disease. While listening, I checked Feels Blind Literary’s inbox for the first time in a while, my mood instantly buoyed by the many submissions waiting to be read from a mix of accomplished writers and writers just starting out. Maybe there’s a huge difference between failing and taking a break? Between being broken and feeling broken? Between being on an artificial timeline and a timeline I create for myself?

Over the past several months, I found a new job doing community-engaged work, my people showed up for me in big ways and I’ve invested in healthier relationships, and I slowly returned to creating, not because of a deadline for editors or a magazine that had to get out, but because my whole heart is in the work again. And I started new projects, too. Another novel. A short story. An essay. I left the Lincoln Theatre that night feeling for the first time in a long time that lives—especially messy, interesting, rewarding lives— aren’t linear, and that there’s a good chance I’ve been right on track all along. Maybe it’s not just banks and corporate entities that are too big to fail?

This is all to say, I know I’m going to be more than okay. Launching Issue #10 of Feels Blind Literary is a testament to that. It’s funny how when I look through each of the pieces published in this issue, I can pinpoint the exact anxieties or uncertainties I was working through while reading and responding to them. How beautiful to find solace in the words of others, solace that has pushed me to write my own words again. Now, every day feels like a step closer to the life I know I’m meant to live. I’m glad to be back. It’s beautiful here.

XO, Lindsay
Editor in Chief 

PS I am continuing my new feature, recommending a new or new to me band in each opening letter. Catbite is a super fun, four-piece ska-punk band out of Philly with an amaze lead singer, Brit Luna. They’re touring now, so check them out if you can.