Volume 19, Issue 2 – Winter 2025-2026

Greetings and welcome to the Winter 2025-2026 issue of Wordgathering. As always, we have much to share with you—and much for which to be thankful. As we in the northeastern U. S. shift past midwinter, many of us continue to manage often chilly climes geographically, socio-politically, and otherwise. Crip Poetry, Crip Arts, and Crip Cultures, both around the globe and closer to our local home bases, continue to be proof(s) of resistance, connected consistently with and committed to practices of joy, care-work, mutual aid, and survival writ large.

As Editor-in-Chief, I am grateful for ongoing and outstanding collaborative support from my esteemed colleagues at Syracuse University, Patrick Williams, Dylan Mohr, and Steve Kuusisto. Thanks, too, to Dr. Kate Deibel for her past role in supporting Wordgathering‘s accessibility and engagement. Immense gratitude goes, as always, to our exemplary editorial team: Assistant Editor, Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri; Flash Memoir Editor, Dan Simpson; Gatherer’s Blog Editor, Ona Gritz; Poetry Editor, Emily K. Michael; Prose Editor, Sean J. Mahoney; and Assistant Book Reviews Editor, Kate Champlin. And thanks, forever and always, to our Special Guest Editor (2020-2023), Kenny Fries.

Thinking about the global and the local, it has long been a hope and goal of ours to include an accessible map of the loci from which our esteemed contributors hail. We mentioned this plan to you in the preamble to our prior issue. Thanks to brilliant and steadfast Assistant Editor, Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri, we now have an accessible map interface for your interest and enjoyment. You can find it on our main menu in the About Us section; it will be updated regularly, beginning with the launch of the current issue into the world.

This issue’s Gatherer’s Blog was written by Anne Kaier. The issue’s Reading Loop was written by Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri. As noted in her bio, Kaier’s new book of poems, How Can I Say It Was Not Enough? (part of Nine Mile Press’s Propel Disability Poetry Book Series) “articulates the complex, compelling, ‘love story’ of connectedness she finds in her writing life in relation to disablement, imagination, and—of course (!)—creativity.” In this issue’s Gatherer’s Blog, Kaier presents these concepts and foci in relation to wardrobe choices, adonization, and other fascinating themes. You can also read a review of How Can I Say it Was Not Enough? in this issue. Zubal-Ruggieri’s Reading Loop is a meta-commentative examination, both vulnerable and iconoclastic, of Rach’s enduring “imposter syndrome” and her creative, strategic responses to these experiences.

Kate Champlin, Ona Gritz, Linda Henderson, Anne Kaier, Liv Mammone, Michael Northen, A. C. Riffer, Chanika Svetvilas, Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri, and yours truly contributed a total of 17 book reviews (on 18 works) to this issue. If you would like to join our book reviewers’ team, please write to me at wordgathering@syr.edu. Unfortunately, at the present time, we do not have funds to compensate any of our contributors—including reviewers.

The poems “The one with the dog” by Emily K. Michael and “Shall I Name It” by Jameson Lee Christopher were audio recorded by me. Other poems were audio recorded by the poets themselves.

We have lost many Crip luminaries in the temporal spaces between our most recent issue and this one. The Winter 2025-2026 issue is dedicated, with vast appreciation, celebration, and grief, to our beloveds, mentors, and friends—and now, counted among our legacy-bearing ancestors: Carole Hayes Collier, Bob Kafka, Harilyn Rousso, and Alice Wong. Speaking of joy, sorrow, grief, and recent Crip ancestors, if you haven’t viewed the 2025 documentary, Come See Me in the Good Light, I encourage you to do so. Andrea Gibson and their widow Megan Falley remain heroes of mine, gotta say.

After nearly twenty years, Wordgathering continues to be “found” for the first time by various folx across the globe. This circumstance (or whatever you might call this phenomenon) pleases me immensely, especially when young people seek, find, and create meaning in and among our digital pages, both current and archival. We were interviewed in the fall of 2025 by Duotrope; this lovely interaction was yet another example of our ongoing engagements with fellow writers and artists, hither and yon.

Due to the sheer volume of new book review requests, we will again be publishing a “special supplement,” dedicated entirely to book reviews and book review essays, in Spring 2026. This upcoming special supplement will be the third time we have embarked upon such an endeavor, and suffice to say (!), we have plans underway for our fourth special supplement (set to appear in Spring 2027). You can find our Spring 2024 special supplement and our Spring 2025 special supplement online.

Indeed, we continue to be grateful to friends near and far. Thanks to our pal, contributor Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, for sharing a guest blog, “Death, Taxes and Poetry, or, Poetry is My Disability.” So many congratulations are in order for recent and upcoming publications. There are dozens, in fact, and we surely do not want to leave out anyone! However, I felt it was particularly important to salute and celebrate the very-recent publication of Every Place on the Map Is Disabled: Poems and Essays (edited by the incomparable team of Camisha L. Jones, Michael Northen, Naomi Ortiz, and Travis Chi Wing Lau). Stay tuned for our review of this exciting new anthology in an upcoming issue. Mazel Tov, friends!

Stay well, safe, and in caring company. Wishing you peace in the thaw. We hope you enjoy this new issue as this hemisphere’s spring opens its accessible doors soon.

We appreciate you all.

—Diane R. Wiener, Editor-in-Chief

Underlined content throughout Wordgathering is hyperlinked (each underlined element is a clickable link), leading to further aspects of the content shared. Any questions about accessibility can be addressed by emailing us at: wordgathering@syr.edu.

Please note that the opinions and perspectives shared by our contributors (in their published work or elsewhere) do not necessarily align with or reflect the opinions and perspectives held by the members of the journal’s editorial and administrative team.