EDITOR'S NOTE

ON THE OCCASION OF
OUR TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY    

A creative writing journal ages differently than people. It measures time not in years or milestones, but in the myriad of voices and readers that arrive, depart, and return having been or hoping to be transformed.

Over twenty years, a journal also learns the art of listening.

When I began my service as editor of Review Americana, I did not foresee the profound responsibility of stewarding a publication through the passage of decades. Initially, I viewed my role as curatorial — selecting, shaping, and assembling content. Gradually, I realized that editing is an act of mentorship, of caretaking, of guiding a writer's voice into clearer focus without ever supplanting it, thus holding space for the work to become its own true self.

Editing, much like other forms of care, should go unnoticed. It unfolds in quiet reading sessions, in marginal notes crafted with hope rather than authority or scolding, and in dialogues that encourage a piece to become its fullest manifestation. It is about advocating for rigor while maintaining risk, and for clarity without sacrificing complexity. It requires discernment in knowing when to say yes, when to say "not yet," and when to trust that a voice will find its moment elsewhere.

In two decades, Review Americana has built more than mere issues; it has gathered together a literary family to ask important questions. The early essays, poetry, drama, creative nonfiction, and stories resonate with urgency — political climates, cultural tensions, and aesthetic debates — that now serve as artifacts of a not-so-distant past. Others feel eerily contemporary, as if they were poised for this moment to be deeply and profoundly understood.

This peculiar grace of a creative writing publication lies in its ability to layer time — as we can see when we stand on the ridge of the Grand Canyon — rather than watch it slip through our fingers.

The works published within these pages have never treated Americana as a static concept or a settled inheritance. Instead, they engage with it as a dynamic space of friction and imagination — where memory collides with myth, where regional voices challenge national, even international, narratives, and where writers explore the complexities of belonging, dissent, and witness.

If the journal has maintained a distinct voice, it has always been writers in conversation — writers responding to one another, genres engaging in dialogue, emerging voices alongside established ones, thought leaders challenging culture and politics. Some writers first graced these pages at the start of their careers and now return as frequent contributors, Advisory Board members, mentors, and educators. Others contributed a single piece, leaving an indelible mark that continues to resonate. A good journal, over time, learns to balance continuity with change without suppressing either. It also succeeds in crafting community.

This anniversary is not an endpoint; it is a pause — a breath taken mid-sentence. The next twenty years will usher in new questions, invite innovative forms, and address a cultural landscape yet to be defined, which is precisely as it should be. A creative writing journal exists not to preserve certainty but to create space for inquiry.

Review Americana has endured because writers and readers alike believe in the significance, the power, of imagination — that language is a means of thinking, and that thoughtful engagement is, at its core, an act of courage. I am profoundly grateful to all who have entrusted this journal with their words, their risks, and their passion.

Join the community, the conversation, the family, as we strive to make a positive global impact...now...together…

Leslie Kreiner Wilson, Editor

 

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