Hello reader. Sorry for the slight delay, I forgot to schedule this at the usual time…and, not to call him out, but Angel said he’d do the intro and as you can clearly see, I am. In Angel’s defense, he is hard at work designing the issue, and getting the cover ready for our cover reveal happening in early July! So, don’t yell at him. I’ll yell at him. I run a tight ship, managing editors have to manage editors as well! And yes, while my tactics to some may seem…extreme (evil), it gets results! Look how pretty RABBLE REVIEW is! That’s all thanks to me yelling, and screaming, and being generally unpleasant to the entire team…

That was a joke.

Anyways, last week I published a sort of post mortem for the planning process. I guess it’s technically not a post mortem since we’re not finished with the entire issue, but we are finished with the first phase, so…I guess it’s still a post mortem of that, right? And to tell you the truth, I thought a lot about writing it. I am a creative writer myself, and I have been in workshops, so I see the value in thoughtful analysis and feedback. But critique can (often) come across as mean. And I didn’t want my words to come across that way, because I LOVE the creative process, and collaboration. Which is ultimately why I wanted to write it in the first place. So, I decided that in the spirit of transparency and the creative process, that we should be upfront about what we liked, AND, what we did not like during our submission review. I hope it is helpful to you if you are a creative writer yourself, and, most importantly, a submitter to our lovely literary journal. We’re hardly the biggest, baddest, bitch at the ball, but we are still doing the damn thing so we will have our standards, tastes, and quirks. With all that said, if you want a peek at the process building this issue thus far, head on over to our blog.

Also, here’s a PNG I made of a lizard.

Yes, this lizard is related to RR10 both the design and a work you’ll find in the issue. You’ll see. You’ll all see.

In other news, Jer will be at the Ottawa Anarchist Bookfair this coming Saturday (June 27th!) so if you’re in the area, please be sure to attend and take some of the cool pins that Jer had made! And please say hello to him as you do so. It’d be a bit weird to just take a pin without acknowledging Jer. He’s sitting right there!

Also, I teased that we have a cover reveal on the way. Issue 10 has cover art selected! Yahoo! The reveal will come in the next newsletter. Unless I forget. Or Angel forgets. Or we change our mind about releasing the issue, something that is unlikely, but always possible if you really think about it. We love to keep you guessing!

So, what does that mean for the launch of the issue? We’re aiming for August. That’s what I’ll say in the announcement trailer anyways. You will be able to read RABBLE REVIEW No.10 this August! Hooray! And, RABBLE REVIEW No.11, is due this October! Wow! Cool! We can’t wait for you to read them both. We hope you do. We hope you share it with your friends. Hot!

Okay, last bit of news, I am finally getting around to editing the contributor readings I have acquired over the past few…years. Oops. Look, they’ve all been featured in the three livestreams we’ve done, which is great, but if you ever wanted to revisit them, you’d have to go into that two hour livestream and find it there. Which, is fine, but we want these readings to be shareable and easily accessible. So, head on over to our YouTube channel to see the readings. Readings from our first two livestreams are all on the channel, and Issue No.9 readings are rolling out throughout the week, just so nothing gets buried.

So we’re keeping busy! Also, keep an eye out on our Instagram in the next few days. We’re going to try and step our community engagement up a bit because we want to be more involved, and because we could all use more reasons to be creative. That’s all I’ll say for now, but notice I didn’t give an exact time frame. That is just in case I change my mind. Next few days can be this Thursday. Or next Thursday. Or two months from now. What can I say, I like to have an off ramp. Onward!

The, Work of the Week, is chosen at random every Friday and featured on the site for one week (or more if I forget to change it.) Be sure to check back to see which work is featured next: https://rabblereview.com/work-of-the-week

That’s all for now readers. Thank you for reading. RABBLE REVIEW No.10 is coming along nicely and we’re so excited for you to see it. In the meantime, please revisit our back issues. They’re good, and I’m not just saying that because I’m paid to. As a matter of fact, I’m not paid at all. Typical. Bosses love to take advantage of passionate workers. Wait, I’m my boss. Ugh! I’m my own worse enemy. I don’t know why I decided this week would be very joke heavy. I think it’s because I’m writing this at 11:28am as opposed to 11:28pm. I hope one of those jokes landed. And if none of them landed, please don’t unsubscribe! Next time I’ll be normal, I swear! You love this newsletter, it’s the best newsletter. Unsubscribe from those damn LinkedIn Job Alerts, half of them are for fake jobs anyways, don’t ask me how I know!

Alright folks, on that note, I’m gonna go do something else. I hope you have a fantastic week. Stay safe, look out for one another, and keep creating art.

Have a good week. Ily. 😍