Welcome to the Summer 2026 issue (also known as “Issue 71a”) of Wordgathering. We appreciate your patience in awaiting this issue’s arrival in the digital world and beyond. As Editor-in-Chief, I am grateful for ongoing and outstanding collaborative support from my esteemed colleagues at Syracuse University, Patrick Williams, Dylan Mohr, and Steve Kuusisto. Thanks, too, to Dr. Kate Deibel for her past role in supporting Wordgathering‘s accessibility and engagement. And very special thanks to Tommy Brandt, Director of Marketing Technology & Operations in the Division of Marketing. Tommy transitioned our WordPress site so that the journal is now in better alignment with Syracuse University’s digital brand, security protocols, and outward-facing expectations. Wordgathering will now be found at wordgathering.syr.edu. There will necessarily be some nuances to address and “deets” to iron out as we continue to manage the WordPress theme transition and related elements. Thank you in advance for your patience.
Immense gratitude goes, as always, to our exemplary editorial team: Assistant Editor, Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri; Flash Memoir Editor, Dan Simpson; Gatherer’s Blog Editor, Ona Gritz; Poetry Editor, Emily K. Michael; Prose Editor, Sean J. Mahoney; and Assistant Book Reviews Editor, Kate Champlin. And thanks, forever and always, to our Special Guest Editor (2020-2023), Kenny Fries.
This issue’s (spirited and gorgeous) Gatherer’s Blog was written by our very own Daniel Simpson. J. M. C. Kane, Leah McNaughton Lederman, Michael Northen, Brett Stuckel, and Liz Whiteacre contributed a total of five compelling book reviews to this issue. If you would like to join our book reviewers’ team, please write to me at wordgathering@syr.edu. Unfortunately, at the present time, we do not have funds to compensate any of our contributors—including reviewers.
The poems “Static in Snapshots” and “My Aunt Asks How Physical Therapy is Going” by Morgan Altare and “Aunts” by Lynn Strongin were audio recorded by me. Other poems were audio recorded by the poets themselves.
We again encourage you, dear readers and visitors, to engage with the wide berth of visual arts and multimedia offerings shared by our generous and incredible contributors in this issue. Longstanding contributor and collaborator, artist and writer, Chanika Svetvilas, gifted us with an arts review in this issue, about which I am particularly pleased (or, as my California-raised cousins might say, “stoked”). Wordgathering has received an ever-increasing number of visual art, multimedia, and interdisciplinary submissions and other art-related content–especially over the past several years. Moreover, our collaborations around arts across media and the sharing of ideas and creativity have expanded in striking parallel with the increase in arts-related submissions and accompanying published content. For example, Daichi Takahashi of APOC Co., Ltd., a public relations firm based in Tokyo, recently reached out to share the story of CripArts innovator, Misa Ohashi. You can read more about Misa Ohashi’s Shiba Park Hotel Co., Ltd. arts interventions in “Park Hotel Tokyo Artist Room ‘Treasure Box’: Interview with Paralym Art Artist Misa Ohashi.” We hope to host an interview to explore this story further in an upcoming issue.
Wordgathering began as a quarterly publication in 2007, and the Summer 2026 issue therefore denotes the beginning of the journal’s 20th year of publication (while our 20th “anniversary” will be in 2027!). In deep recognition of the sheer quantity and gravity of book review requests that we have received and continue to receive (leading to our ever-lengthening “book reviews queue”), and, after a great deal of careful consideration, we have decided, in celebration of 20 years, to resume what I will anecdotally call a sort-of-quarterly publication schedule (!).
As many long-time readers and visitors will likely recall, in 2023, Wordgathering shifted to a biannual publication schedule. Then, while technically still “a biannual,” we shared three book reviews and book review essays special supplements, in Spring 2024, Spring 2025, and Spring 2026. For our 20th publishing year, we will be offering a further “cripped” or adapted biannual publication schedule, wherein we will publish two full issues (Summer 2026 and Winter 2026-2027) and two book reviews and book review essays special supplements (Fall 2026 and Spring 2027). We are considering this new plan a trial run/roll. Thinking into the future, we will continue to have two full “reading windows,” between March 1 and May 1 (for Summer issues) and between September 1 and November 1 (for Winter issues). The Fall and Spring special supplements will be created internally by the editorial team, working closely with authors, editors, publishers, and reviewers, as we address our aforementioned “book reviews queue.”
Several other new, exciting things are manifesting in the issue you have before you. After reading Yu Taguchi’s creative nonfiction, having asked Yu about interviewing her, and then proceeding with our interview, Yu and I continued to “go deep” in talking about Disability representation in Japan and beyond. Learning about Yu’s life story, skilled and thoughtful writing, initiative, motivation, and compassion, I welcomed Yu to launch a bilingual manga discussion series for Wordgathering, to “introduce Japanese disability-themed manga to English-language readers,” as Yu describes this collaboration’s primary goal. Thus, it gives me great pleasure to present to you the first installment of “Manga Does Not Draw Lines,” with immense thanks to Yu Taguchi and all of the authors, artists, and creatives who are now being (and those who will in the future be) featured in this ongoing project, all of whom appear and are otherwise referenced with permission. In each offering of “Manga Does Not Draw Lines,” Yu will present her English translated content with links to her original articles / writings published in Japanese. Bilingual image descriptions will be included for any visual content—of course. Yu’s creative nonfiction piece and our interview both appear in this issue in English and Japanese, again with great thanks to Yu. Please stay tuned for the Winter 2026-2027 issue for the second installment of “Manga Does Not Draw Lines.”
Those who are familiar with the journal’s introductions or “preambles” know how much I love to affirm and share good news, including awesome updates from our esteemed and fabulous editorial team. Congratulations to Poetry Editor, Emily K. Michael, whose new poetry collection, At Every Stage I’ve Been, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Emily was interviewed recently for Authors Answer and Voices from the Field (both on Substack). Congratulations to Gatherer’s Blog Editor, Ona Gritz, whose new YA novel, The Shape of Wings, was published earlier this summer by West 44 Books. Congratulations to former Special Guest Editor, Kenny Fries, whose feature on disability literature was published in People.
And the good news herein continues, despite and concurrent with the many deeply troubling things we face on the daily. We at Wordgathering were contacted recently by Evan Sweeney, Founder & Director of The Access Archive Project. Evan reached out given the strong connections between our endeavors and commitments. After a lovely sequence of email communications, I will be interviewing Evan for the Winter 2026-2027 issue. Other interviews are being planned, too, including with Beth Haller and her team at The Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (GADIM), with whom and with which we remain honored to be in collaborative company.
This issue of Wordgathering was being finalized and arrives in the world as many luminaries left their mortal coil in very close succession. We honor the memory of singer, musician, and literacy and equity champion Dolly Parton, actor and musician Tim Curry (who lived with disability experiences, particularly toward the end of his life), mad/disabled artist Yayoi Kusama, poet Wendell Berry, feminist groundbreaker Gloria Steinem, and jazz vocalist and musician Cassandra Wilson. All of these individuals were of course not faultless. However, it is important in particular to acknowledge the ways in which Yayoi Kusama, whose psychiatrization and mental health variances contributed to a reclaimed artistic sensibility (without idealization), likewise infamously made problematic and offensive comments (both implicitly and explicitly racist), for which she later expressed deep remorse and apologized. May their memories be for blessings and revolutions.
As the leaves fall in this hemispheric context, may your creativity rise.
—Diane R. Wiener, Editor-in-Chief
Underlined content throughout Wordgathering is hyperlinked (each underlined element is a clickable link), leading to further aspects of the content shared. Any questions about accessibility can be addressed by emailing us at: wordgathering@syr.edu.
Please note that the opinions and perspectives shared by our contributors (in their published work or elsewhere) do not necessarily align with or reflect the opinions and perspectives held by the members of the journal’s editorial and administrative team.