Special Issue 2022: Suitcase

Dear Readers,

At Voices and Visions, we try to choose themes for our publications that encapsulate a transnational mood. As we approach the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, communities around the world continue to experience an ebb and flow of restrictions, and our ability to see loved ones, go to school, or provide for ourselves or our families is in constant flux. A suitcase can simultaneously represent transition and stagnancy. They can be packed or unpacked, loaded into cars, buses, trains, or planes, and they can remind us of other homes, other places, and other selves.

We were eager to see how a divergent theme like “Suitcase” might be interpreted, and the submissions we received this winter surpassed anything we could have imagined. Creative nonfiction pieces toggle between multiple states and countries, exploring how places inform our identities, the difficulties and catharses of change, and how the pandemic exacerbated ongoing systems of exclusion and oppression. Fiction pieces metaphorize celebrity culture and class and gender divides. In a poem titled “Suitcase,” the speaker’s body carries physical and internal mementos of lived experience and defiant growth.

Thank you to our readers for your continued support, and to our contributors for sharing their stories.

Sincerely,

The Voices and Visions Editorial Team

Let Us Eat Birthday Cake / Between Homes

Diana Lucero

Barnard College, NY, NY

It carries

Victoria Cadostin

Barnard College, NY, NY

Baggage Claim

Kate Knox

Cottey College, Nevada, MO