Letter from the Editors

Dear Barnstorm readers, returning and new,

The new year has arrived, and I know I am not the first to say it has been nothing short of chaotic. With plenty of Seacoast snow days, our northern New England community has spent the majority of the winter indoors, cuddled on our couches drinking hot chocolate and rewatching season two of Bridgerton for the third time (or am I just projecting?)

Regardless, I know I am not the only one finding it difficult to look on the bright side of things when our only scenic options are 1. a never-ending snow storm or 2. doom scrolling through a feed of political turmoil and endless bad news. In times like this, it can feel difficult (or even impossible) to find any source of light while sinking into the darkest days of the year.

Working on a college campus often reminds me that everything is a matter of perspective. Watching as my students throw themselves into new hobbies, make new friends, and decide to challenge themselves with new courses outside their comfort zone time and time again keeps me from settling into my own. I think that’s something we can all push ourselves to remember when the weight of the world gets to be too much; we have control over our own lives, and the power to shape our future. However, that can be difficult when it feels like that future is at risk.

I recently met with a talented, outgoing poetry student majoring in environmental conservation and sustainability. She would have loved to study within the humanities and work on her art, but that “the planet is dying, and [she] had to do something about it.”

And while this was heartbreaking, it was immensely powerful as well. We can keep on creating our art, carving space in our lives for that personal joy, while also devoting our time into creating the kind of world we want to live in. We can hold space for literature, art, beauty, the things that remind us why we are happy to be alive, and fight for the future we feel we deserve. One does not have to take place of the other.

That being said, I, alongside the rest of the Barnstorm editorial team, am ecstatic to present another issue of incredible work from talented writers and artists alike. In the spirit of highlighting joy through literature and art, I also asked our team to share something they read over our winter break that stood out to them. If you need a little bit of art, a little joy (ok, not all of these are happy stories, but I digress), in your life this semester, check out these recs.

Stay warm, stay positive, and stay reading!

Best,

Cari Elizabeth Moll

Editor in Chief

Barnstorm Journal

Editor in Chief • Cari Elizabeth Moll

Over the break, I was lucky enough to be granted the opportunity to listen to the ALC of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. This story is spectacular! Spooky, funny, and downright horrifying at times, this is a beautiful, emotional novel about power, desperation, and love. This is such an important story, especially in today’s world, where women fight for control over their bodies every day. I can’t recommend it enough.

Managing Editor • Caleb Jagoda

Blindness by Jose Saramago is a novel-length parable about what would happen if society collapsed because of an epidemic of infectious white blindness—but there’s a caveat: It reads as if an alien wrote it. Saramago writes these long, ultra-descriptive, page-spanning sentences full of commas and asides, all from the perspective of an unnamed, omniscient narrator, who makes mind-busting observations about existence and society and what it means to see and be seen. It’s a crazy book that blew my mind to what a novel can be. Like Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse Five,’ or Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm,’ it feels important—like something everyone should read for the betterment of society. I can’t recommend it enough. Saramago has the juice.

Nonfiction Editor • Steph George

Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing up Solo is a thoughtfully collection of essays edited by Deborah Siegal and Daphne Uviller, rich with humor and nuance. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that provides such an honest answer to the dreaded, tired questions from well-meaning friends and peers about what it’s like growing up without siblings. To save anyone curious the time, the answer is “it depends”, which is to say that you pick up this collection, you won’t read the same story twice.

Fiction Editor • Sophia Baran

Embroidered Worlds: Fantastic Fiction from Ukraine & the Diaspora edited by Valya Dudycz Lupescu is a fascinating anthology of Ukrainian sci-fi and fantasy stories that have been translated into English for the first time. This anthology include a stories about a mother struggling to understand her daughter who lives in a highly radioactive garden, a satire about a Russian conscript trapped in a time loop, and a story about bike-obsessed spirit that lives in the city of Lviv. If you are looking for horror, magic, and heart, this wonderful anthology rooted in Ukrainian imagination is just what you are looking for.

Poetry Editor • Skylar Miklus

Over the break, I got to read an ARC of Hardly Creatures, a debut from bakla Filipino poet Rob Macaisa Colgate. This book had a funky structure modeled after an accessible art gallery, complete with accessibility symbols and wall placards. I loved the way the text toyed with intelligibility and il/legibility, particularly through a series of abecedarian poems. Colgate's playfulness on the page is infectious.

Arts Editor • Haley Hodge

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

All flourishing is mutual — A guide on how we can view the world as a gift.

“When we speak of these not as things or natural resources or commodities, but as gifts, our whole relationship to the natural world changes.”