issue 50

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of 2016. What’s to love about a year when you lose Muhammed Ali, Prince, Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and Gene Wilder? A year of creepy clowns, and creepier politicians? A year when we might as well announce all our personal data to the world, because it’s obvious that it’s already making the rounds in Russia or China, or one of those countries with a load of consonants and “stan” in their names? A divisive year, full of fake news and accusations, clashes and clangor, hateful rhetoric and even more hateful trolling, Sturm und Drang…

But wait—all is not despair:

Vestal Review hereby unveils its 50th online issue.

It is as beautiful and disturbing as its cover image (by the amazing Lora Vysotskaya). And its nine fascinating stories will, for a brief but poignant moment in time (they’re Flash, after all), iron out the corners of your harried mind. They will bathe you in dreams; they will slap you upside the head with art; they will stun you with the pathos, the kindness, of love and loss and, yes, death. You will be mystified, edified, glorified-

You will lift your eyes from the computer and sigh, and you will find the strength to carry your battered heart into the weed-choked unknown of 2017.

—Susan O’Neill