Editor's Note

For a cool spot to relax with The Cortland Review's Issue 64, let yourself into Allen Forrest's "Beaux Arts, WA, Shadows on the Lane," a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-impressionist elements reminiscent of van Gogh, what Forrest calls "emotion on canvas." "Painting," he says, "is a crap shoot, finding your way out of the woods and performing a magic act. Each time I begin to paint I feel like I am walking a tightrope--sometimes scary, sometimes exciting, sometimes very quiet and always surprising, leading me where I never expected to go." "Color," he goes on to say, "is the most agile and dynamic medium to create joy." Forrest, born in Canada and raised in the U.S., works in many mediums, including oil painting, computer graphics, theatre, digital music, film and video. For a lot more of Allen Forrest, visit allen-forrest.fineartamerica.com

Settle back with a cool drink under Forrest's "Shadows on the Lane" with new poems by Jose Angel Araguz, Weston Cutter, Liz Dolan, Andrew Grace, Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., Alex Greenberg, Carolyn Guinzio, Kathleen Hellen, Susan L. Kolodny, Daniel Lawless, Susannah Lawrence, Cynthia Manick, Lyndsie Manusos, D. Nurkse, Merit O'Hare, Kryssa Schemmerling, Sara Slaughter, R.T. Smith, Nicole Tong, Marcus Whalbring and Mimi White; new fiction by S.G. Childress, Timothy George Fenster, Paul Jaskunas, Sidney Thompson and a book review of Anis Shivani's "My Tranquil War" by David Rigsbee along with his essay titled "And Then Something Like This Happens: On the Poetry of John Skoyles."

Special thanks to all our contributors for trusting The Cortland Review with their work, to the TCR poetry and fiction editors, Anna Catone, Elizabeth Gold, Christian Gullette, and Jennifer Wallace for their selections of the best stories and poems being written today by both established and emerging writers, to Managing Editor, Amy MacLennan, for keeping track of all TCR's loose ends, to David Moody, audio, and Rick Tracy, photography, for their technical smarts, and to Guy Shahar for founding us and building the TCR website that keeps getting better, and to Contributing Editors David Rigsbee and Chard deNiord for their critical work, and to you, too, of course, our readers for always coming back for more.

Cheers,
Ginger Murchison
Editor