Editor’s Page for Yellow Mama Issue #93 – Aug. 15, 2022

Update: Sept. 8, 2022—We are all deeply sorry about the death of Queen Elizabeth. Our prayers and thoughts are with our UK writers, artists, and readers. We especially remember how, a few days after 9/11/2001, she had her elite Coldstream Guards band play the U.S. national anthem at the changing of the guard to show solidarity. Thank you, Your Majesty! We will miss you."

Happy summer, you guys!

And it’s definitely summer, at least here in the States. On top of the Covid pandemic, and mass shootings, we had a widespread heat wave. Even our friends in the UK suffered through it. Who knew so many were without A/C? Some people can die without A/C. Well, we’re all in this together.

At Yellow Mama, we still publish fiction and poetry to distract you from real-life horrors.

As always, this issue features top-notch noir. Ken Luer’s antihero realizes there’s “No Going Back” to the good ol’ days before the joint. In Paul Beckman’s “Strickland’s Last Day,” an ex-con’s first day loose gets him into deeper shit. Daniel C. Bartlett’s “Carryout” focuses on an abused wife seeking the protection of a grocery store delivery guy. And in Pamela Ebel’s “Happy Hour at the Grown Folks’ Bar,” a different battered wife decides DIY is the way to go.

This issue also features stories so strange, it’s like a preview of our Halloween issue (# 94)! “Blocks,” by the late Mark Jabaut, gives us three trapped strangers, forced to stick blocks in the same three holes in a wall . . . in shifts! In “Cook Moves On,” Kenneth James Crist’s time-traveling cowboy battles gangstas, as well as Indian braves. While trying to read “A Good Book,” Robert Pettus’s narrator sees a monster throw gutter cleaners off the roof!

Other fine stories include KJ Hannah Greenberg’s poignant “Alive Another Day” and Michael D. Davis’s bigger-than-life “The Monster of Hinchley.” And if you love poker, then Bill Kitcher’s “I Like Gorillas” is for you.

Our poetry lineup features three more gritty noirs by John C. Mannone, and powerful poems by two of YM’s newcomers: Richelle Lee Slota and Robert Jeschonek, Also included are works from the amazing Meg Baird, the Nielsens (ayaz daryl and Judith!), and others.

Full-length and flash fiction stories (and some poems) are individually illustrated by our gifted artists: Kevin Duncan, Lonni Lees, Hillary Lyon, KJ Hannah Greenberg, Steve Cartwright, Ann Marie Rhiel, Michael D. Davis, Bernice Holtzman, Sophia Wiseman-Rose, Henry Stanton, Wayne F. Burke, John Sowder, Jack Real, and our newest artist: poet John C. Mannone!

And special thanks to Bernice Holtzman for her “chilling” summer cover!

If you want to submit full-length fiction, flash fiction, or poetry, check out our guidelines page.

Also, please sign our guestbook! If you have comments about Yellow Mama or any stories, poems, or artwork that we run, you may leave comments there.

And check out our revised Archives and Archives II, to catch recent stories or poems by your favorite writers that you might’ve missed.

Most of all, thanks for reading!