We’ve published our special issue “Literature of War: At Home and Abroad.” It’s full of poems and stories from veterans, family members, and other people who have been affected by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead of reiterating what this issue means, I’ll share an excerpt from my introduction:

Meaning is a slippery word. If meaning were a man, I imagine a middleman, a person playing both sides and looking for the largest margin. There have been times in my life when I’ve searched for meaning outside of a given context. I’ve turned to fiction, to poetry, to the words of others. And, there have been times when I’ve believed those words to have no meaning, when I’ve felt outside of experience. Cutoff in my own world.

However, when I read the stories, poems, and nonfiction in this special issue of Scintilla, I’m in awe of the meaning these writers have brought forth, the vision, painful at times, that they have shared. For many of us, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have played out in a vacuum. If Vietnam was the first televised war, what were, what are these wars? The overlooked? The distant?

Spend some time with these writers and be open to a new experience.