Some News, and a Little Pause
On the things we can’t control, and the ways they force us to let go
This month — the whole of 2022, really — has been a rollercoaster on a personal level.
I’ve been pregnant with my first child, which, as a naive and ambitious person, I thought wouldn’t affect my work or my writing or this magazine — spoiler alert: I was wrong. Keeping up with my day job as well as reading and editing submissions for MBL and periodically pitching and querying my own work would have been a lot no matter what, but add the intense fatigue and brain fog that come with a normal pregnancy and it gets much harder. And then there’s my particular pregnancy, which has been healthy for the baby all along (thank goodness) but has been poisoning me slowly, to the point where every midwife appointment seems to bring some fresh hell and a new complication diagnosis.
Now, it’s all fine. I’m safe, and managing my complications well, and I have a ton of support for which I’m infinitely grateful. But there’s been little opportunity to plan anything as my due date became an induction at 39 weeks became an induction at 37 weeks — this last shift in the timeline was announced to us eight days before the adjusted due date, as our hospital bag lay open and mostly empty on our bed at home and the bassinet leaned against a wall in the closet, still boxed and unassembled.
All of which is to say: thank you in advance for bearing with us over the next few months. We do have a story for you this month, since Part Two of Crystal Hill’s fabulous The Thing About Sunsets is out on Monday— go read Part One at that link if you haven’t yet, and keep your eyes on the site for the second half — but after this month I’ll be on maternity leave from my various careers.
So we’re taking a little pause for May and June, which is a bummer because those are two of my favorite months for themes — parental relationships are such rich fodder for stories and essays and poems — but maybe when we’re back we’ll throw the calendar to the wind and publish some mother/father pieces anyway. After all, who says there’s a rule book for these kinds of things?
In the meantime, I hope you’ll keep submitting your work (as long as you don’t mind waiting a couple of months for us to read it — we’re cool about simultaneous submissions) and read some of the wonderful work in our archives and send our talented writers some love (and some support in the form of comments and claps). I’ll see you all on the other side, likely very sleep-deprived!
xo,
