MEA is proud to announce the release of As You Were: The Military Review, Vol. 24. We have spent the last several months assembling the moving parts together for this issue, and the work has been an honor and a pleasure for our staff.
The poetry, artwork, creative nonfiction, and literary fiction contained in this edition are a reflection of the immense diversity of experiences and impacts inherent in military service and adjacency. These experiences, thoughts, and feelings form the thematic raw material of the works we publish, but it is skill and dedication that their creators use to forge them into the cohesive, polished creative pieces presented to you in As You Were, Vol. 24.
As you explore this edition and absorb the meanings of the works within it, bear in mind that what you’re seeing is the result of intense efforts. Each painting or drawing had its false starts, to say nothing of the hours of learning exacting methods. Every poem was jotted down, rearranged, tossed aside, and crafted anew. The short stories were imagined, questioned, studied, and reworked. The writing of the creative nonfiction essays was much the same, with the added requirement that they be true to memory and authentic to feeling.
As with every edition, many of the featured writers have collaborated with our team of editors for one-on-one revision guidance. They’ve opened themselves up to critique and signed on for yet more effort, more honing of the pieces through the aegis of open-minded learning. The results speak for themselves.
It’s with gratitude for you, our audience, that we welcome you to read and see and explore the works within As You Were, Vol. 24. We hope you’re as enriched by reading it as we have been in its creation. Thank you!
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