Editor’s Letter

The oppressed struggle in language to recover ourselves, to reconcile, to reunite, to renew. Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance. Language is also a place of struggle. — bell hooks

“Several women in politics that Amra and I have interviewed indicate their greatest strength is in listening. They learn what the issues are, talk to people about what might resolve those issues, and figure out how to make it work.”

“All of a sudden you feel like somebody has your back and you matter. You are not just an addict. That grace is huge.” — April Chouinard

The is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. — Audre Lorde

Replacing trauma, ghosts, gossip, and the politics of toxic masculinity with a warmer space of Vision and Values.

“Imagination shared creates collaboration, and collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change.” — Terry Tempest Williams

I had to focus not on what I could see, but on how the sound bouncing off me in relation to structures and environments locates me in a constantly shifting relationship to you, whoever you are by now.
—Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals”

“People need jobs, equality, education. We still need to organize to learn how the economics and politics drive everything
in life. Can’t stop now.”
—Nellie Stone Johnson, at the age of 90 in 1995

“This fear spurs me into action.” — Lindalee Soderstrom

“We must not be content only to see things as they are. We must have the vision, faith, and hope to see what things can and must become.”
— Sister Generose Gervais

Americans put a lot of energy and political investment into an inflated capitalist system that is only a sliver of how our communities work.

I recently had a chance to spend nine days in New York City, where I had lived for 18 years.