Letter from the Editor

By Hayley Peterson

Issue 38 • Fall 2018

Dear Reader,

Growing up, I didn’t read many books written by female authors, and if I did, the main character was usually male. This wasn’t an active choice; the books I read were whatever was available, popular, assigned. I loved these books. They taught me to read, to write, and to value words and stories. But they also taught me that some voices were required reading, like Salinger and Hemingway, and some were optional, like Plath or Morrison, and most weren’t even on the list at all.

It wasn’t until after college that I actively started seeking out books by and about women—that I even realized I was missing out on over half a population’s worth of stories. I began to see that pink book covers and phrases like “chick lit”—things I tried to avoid in order to be taken seriously as a female writer—had disguised the stories and sentences that spoke to me in deep, powerful ways as superfluous.

The submission period for Issue 38 closed shortly before a nation of women streamed (or purposefully didn’t stream) a story we’ve all experienced in one way or another: the Kavanaugh hearing. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford gathered herself, as we’re so often told to do in order to seem credible, in order to seem valuable, and told her story, which was anything but superfluous.

The result? Our nation’s representatives called for more Salinger and Hemingway. But Ford’s testimony mattered, and the stories women share about their lives are creating a ripple effect.

At Blue Mesa Review, we don’t read cover letters or identifying information before we evaluate a piece of writing. So, it fills me with pride to see that, in Issue 38, our staff and contest judges have overwhelmingly chosen to publish not only stories by women but about women. About their bodies, their menstrual cycles, their families, their queerness, and about their relationships to place, to nature, to masculinity.

Issue 38 creates new space for literature to be deemed great, and I truly hope you create space in your life to soak in every word.