Letter from the Editor

By Anthony Yarbrough

Issue 49 • Spring 2024

Dear Reader,

Have you noticed things look different here than the last time you visited the site? Of course you do! You’re very observant, and we at Blue Mesa Review pride ourselves on having a perspicacious readership that has followed us throughout the years, perhaps back when we existed as a print-only magazine decades ago, or later in our print-and-digital years, and certainly now in our digital-only era.

As a literary magazine, our priority has always been to publish the most exceptional work that comes across our desks, and that won’t change anytime soon. That being said, over the years we have believed our website’s visual presentation could better showcase the amazing work that we were publishing. Many editors and advisors and administrators have made strong cases for overhauling Blue Mesa Review’s website, but for various reasons had been unable to bring those plans to fruition. This year, however, our editorial staff has banded together—partnering with an amazing web design team at the University of New Mexico—and created an all-new website and issue design that we’re proud to announce with the release of Issue 49.

The new website pays homage to the character of the American Southwest, where the magazine was conceived and has been cultivated over the intervening decades. We encourage every reader to explore not just the current and previous issue, but the entire website. As you do, take note of the artwork populating the pages. Each piece was handcrafted by a member of the staff or by contributors, and each piece was selected for either its connection to the content of the magazine or its resonance with the personality of the Southwest. Our staff is quite proud of our new look, and it’s our sincere hope that the site does a better job than ever before of achieving our original goal: to share incredible contemporary writing.

Speaking of which, I realize I’ve yet to mention the most important part of this semester’s work: the results of our spring contest. This year’s judges—Jenn Givhan for Fiction, Shayla Lawson for Poetry, and Sarah Gerard for Creative Nonfiction—have selected nine amazing pieces for your reading pleasure. By turns haunting, magical, harrowing, restorative, these works will show you the significance of mud bricks, explore the mystery of murmuration, tease apart hard knots of guilt, investigate the complexities of food and relationships, and so much more. Wonderful worlds await you in this issue, and I can’t wait for you to discover them for yourself.

Congratulations to all the winners of our spring contest; I thank you personally for submitting such amazing work. To those reading, I wish you all the reading pleasure in the world. To those writing against the darkness of our world, I wish you success in your endeavors. To next year’s editorial team, I wish you an exciting and fulfilling year’s work. I’m so proud of everything we’ve accomplished together, and I am so excited to see where this magazine goes in the future.

Love and gratitude,

Anthony