Coming December 1, 2024

“And what do I say, across histories, across all strands of time?”

DEAR READER,

Since relaunching River Styx more than a year ago, we find ourselves on the precipice of the magazine’s half-century mark. As we near that milestone it should come as no surprise that we have been dwelling on the past as much as the future, this River Styx fits with that River Styx. Each is its own entity and yet parts of a whole.

River Styx has always been a cultural mirror, a perfect reflection of the epoch. Our pages have featured too many good writers and artists to list here, writers you know on a first-name basis, like: Octavio, Jorge, Margaret, Adrienne, Sharon, Ansel, Ha, and so on. How does the River Styx we are currently publishing fit within a larger context that includes Allen Ginsburg and Gabriel Garcia Marquez? That, I think, is the question we are answering with River Styx 108: Chronicles. The content is diverse, yet a theme begins to emerge upon close inspection, especially among a handful of pieces that address history, memory, and ancient religious and mystical traditions. “And what do I say, across histories, across all strands of time?” Yuge Ma writes in her riveting short play, “Misfortunate.” In “Mechanical Treatments and Other Restorative Plans,” Pamela Baker illustrates the “imperialistic infiltration”—and reclamation of—our wildernesses. Red Danielson’s poem, “Wisteria,” draws traumatic memory from a scar. Soccer leagues compete upon fields spread over a Civil War battleground in Lauren Haldeman’s graphic poem, “Field #2.” Three short stories—by Sarah Starr Murphy, Brad Modlin, and Scott Nadelson—reach far back, sometimes centuries, into the past to carve out purpose and meaning in the present. The cover artwork, produced by Karborn, quite literally depicts the excavation of long lost classical statuary. 

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of River Styx (an achievement made by very few literary journals), and one we plan to celebrate to the fullest. We hope to see your faces at our commemorative events, and we hope you will continue to read and support the magazine, maybe even for another 50 years. Without our readers we are little more than buried statues in the sand. 

BRYAN CASTILLE
MANAGING EDITOR