Editor's Note 12/22

STEAMED FIG PUDDING

2¹/₂ cups soft bread crumbs
¹/₂ cup milk
3 eggs
¹/₂ cup finely chopped suet
1 cup brown or light brown sugar
1 cup chopped figs
¹/₂ teaspoon salt

Soak bread crumbs in milk. Chop the suet into very small pieces. Chop or cut figs into small pieces. Mix all ingredients together and put into a buttered mold with cover (or can be cooked in the top pot of a double boiler). Steam for 4 hours. Serve with cream vanilla sauce or with white wine sauce.

The Mystery Chef's Own Cook Book (1934)

Welcome to our fifteenth and December issue! In this issue, we went for a balance between conversational, everyday language presentations and some fairly complex and abstract material, just to keep things interesting.

And several journal updates. First, in light of the direction Twitter’s new owner has decided to take the platform – and in the interest of having our own self-hosted platform for journal news and updates – we’ve started a Mastodon server:

https://talk.ogre.red/@info

Everyone is welcome to join us! If you need an account, it’s fine to sign up via our server, which I host and moderate directly.

Next year, we’re moving the journal to a bi-monthly publishing schedule. Our first issue of 2023 is set for February.

This is to allow for longer issues and more time for editing between issues. It’s also to accommodate our personal and professional schedules, since most of us are back in grad school for PhDs. I’m back myself for a Masters in cybersecurity (for my non-literary career). Rather than compromise on the quality of the issues, we’re going to allow for some extra breathing room in the publication schedule.

And with that, we present poetry by:

JoAnna Brooker
Gabriel Coffman
Abigail Kirby Conklin
Kale Hensley 🔈
Paul Hostovsky 🔈
Michael Jefferson 🔈
Stephen Kampa
Molly Kraus 🔈
Justin Lacour 🔈
Scott LaMascus 🔈
Kirsti Sandy 🔈

Prose poetry by:

Craig Finlay 🔈
Dom Fonce 🔈
Z. H. Gill 🔈
Heikki Huotari 🔈
Robin Smith

Critical analysis by:

Jones Irwin

And visual art by:

Imelda Wei Ding Lo 🖼️
Veronica Marshall 🖼️
Susan Barry-Schulz 🖼️

Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Matthew Bullen
Founder & Editor-in-Chief

P. S.

The quoted recipe is real – I took it from a signed first edition I found in a used bookstore – and works nicely. Substitute vegetable shortening for suet.

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