Welcome to the 20th Anniversary Issue of Spirit Lake Review! This spring, our student editors worked tirelessly to create an unforgettable special issue that features innovative and outstanding poetry, prose, and visual artworks. In celebration of our two-decade (and counting) run, our 2023 issue highlights the human drive for connection with self, other, nature, and past and present. Complicated and nuanced by pandemic isolation, technology, and the din of contemporary life, this drive for connection is, like all memorable art, hard-won and thought-provoking.

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Housed at University of Wisconsin, Platteville, Spirit Lake Review is, as ever, run by student editors enrolled in our annual Literary Magazines course and advised by a faculty member.  This spring, we were able to open Literary Magazines to students on both our Platteville and Baraboo campuses. For the first time, Spirit Lake Review offered two funded internships to Professional Writing majors. Special thanks to inaugural interns Editor-in-Chief Taylor Arcand and Social Media and Web Design Strategist Arrielle Eckhardt for their tireless work and dedication.

 

We hope you enjoy our website’s updated neutral color palette, which features a delightful banner designed by student editor and Graphic Design major Madeline Korb. We are sure you’ll enjoy our special anniversary issue as much as we do. From emerging writer Hailey Prager’s impressive reverse narrative “Poem in Which My Father’s Windshield Unshatters,” to seasoned poet Michael Martone’s meditative “Dead Mall,” each of the pieces in this carefully curated issue render the human drive for connection as an act of imagination. Wisconsin visual artist Roberta Condon’s whimsical “Waking with the Waxwings” graces our cover this year and evokes the tranquil abundance of spring as a time of communion with nature.

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Spirit Lake Review would like to thank the UW-Platteville faculty, staff, administrators, and community members who continue to support us logistically, financially, and morally. Special thanks are in order for Communications and Media Manager Jolene Werlein; Dean Hilton Kelly; Academic Department Assistant Sara Koeller; Spirit Lake Review founder Dr. Kelly Dwyer; Dr. Laura Roberts; and UW-Platteville Event Services staff. Most importantly, thank you to our readers and contributors for trusting us with your creative work and giving us your attention and support.

 

Here’s to twenty more years!

The 2023 Spirit Lake Review Team