September 23, 2023

Dear Readers, 

It’s hard to believe this is our 25th issue of MoonPark Review. Most days, we still feel young  and full of editorial aspiration, even though, as online literary journals go, we’ve been around the block quite a few times. 

For those of you who may be discovering our journal for the first time, welcome to our humble pages. Be sure to stop by our Masthead and read a bit about the real place that is our beloved MoonPark. 

The change of seasons at MoonPark is a wondrous thing. The trees in western New York make their dramatic transitions quickly, every few months, and we marvel at the beauty every single time. 

The fall equinox is that point in the annual cycle when the earth’s axis is tilted neither away, nor toward, the sun. We hang at this delicate balancing point for a fleeting moment, when day and night are equal in length. Once we pass the equinox, our days will shorten and the darkness will extend, following that trend all the way to the blessed winter solstice.

It was a twist of fate, we suppose, that we decided to publish our journal quarterly. That we’d launch our new issues on the inflection points of the seasons followed naturally, though.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus was the first to observe that the only thing that’s constant in this world is change. Out our windows, the leaves are still mostly green, some yellowing, but soon they will flash orange and red. 

MoonPark Review has brought us six years of great joy. We’ve had the honor of publishing flash fiction, flash essays, and prose poems by many fantastic writers. Many of our contributors have gone on to publish their work in book form – in collections, anthologies, chapbooks, and novels. How rewarding that is to see! 

Social media has played an important part of our story, as it has for many online literary journals. As the landscape of these platforms changes, we’ve worried we may lose standing. After cultivating a large following on the Social-Platform-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, it’s discouraging to have to start over. Even more discouraging that there are so many options of where to start over. We’ll keep doing our best to get the word out about all the great writing we feature in our pages (utilizing as many social media outlets as we can manage, with fingers crossed that some clear winners emerge soon!). 

Our two new favorites are Instagram (where we’re @moonparkreview) and Bluesky (find us there @moonparkreview.bksy.social).

The long and short of it is – we are proud to be a part of an online literary community that continues to flourish and expand, despite the obstacles. MoonPark Review is a labor of love. We don’t charge submission fees and we don’t take advertising. We like to keep our pages simple and clean, to best highlight the literary works and the accompanying illustrations we take great pride in creating and providing. We’re a “keep it simple” kind of shop, and we’re hoping to stick around for the long haul. 

Thanks for reading, and enjoy Issue 25!

Mary Lynn & Lesley Weston-Reed

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