EDITOR’S LETTER

MockingHeart Friends! Welcome back. It’s good to see you again.

It’s October, and it’s Autumn! Here we are again, in this most crisp and sweetly cool of seasons, where family and the winding down of the year come foremost to the mind. Also on the mind of this writer, of course, is our new Fall 2024 issue of MockingHeart Review! In this powerful issue, creators explore the theme of Deception in its many forms–from the little untruths we tell ourselves to help get through the day, to the white lies that save lives–as in our Featured Poet Shaun R. Pankoski’s poem “There’s No Moral Dilemma When You’re Seven”–to the deceit built into our longstanding mythologies. In this latter vein, the poet CS Crowe invites readers into a postmodern take on Greek myth in “The Isle of the Sirens.”

Of course, with a keen eye, deception might be found in almost everything regardless of its lens. For instance, here in Louisiana it’s supposed to be Fall, but folks still cavort about in shorts, and the humidity is enough to ruin anyone’s hair day. If any of our dear readers has some spare cold weather, please do send it this way. Similarly, Robert Okaji’s poem “Horses” discusses the ways in which we come into the world, possessing innate arcane knowledge of how to do our own thing–and all animals have this inside track, turns out, except for us pesky humans. We have to learn our path. But the deceptions we take up along the way give one pause indeed.

But no matter how we encounter deception in the world, or weave it ourselves, recognizing it is ultimately key to success in our lives. What we do with it after that is up to us.

As ever, I hope you relish the work in this issue! Thanks for reading, for submitting, and for being a part of the MockingHeart community. Things wouldn’t be the same without you. And thanks, dear friends, for your excellent work in the world.

Tyler Robert Sheldon, Editor-in-Chief