Foreword from the Editors (Fall 2022)
December 5, 2022
Dear Friends of MORIA,
I am Nicole Favors, the current Editor-in-Chief of MORIA, Woodbury University’s undergraduate-run, online, national literary magazine for professional writers. I am delighted to announce the publication of Issue Ten today!
It’s my utmost pleasure to introduce you all to MORIA’s this new issue, which we have named, “Reflection.” Reading through the submissions that we received, we found a recurring theme reflecting the self and the body and its experiences recently. Adjusting to life after moving out of a pandemic has affected our authors’ lives, as it has the lives of our readers and editors, and prompted work based on this time. For this reason, the MORIA team decided that our theme, "Reflection," would be well-suited to our tenth issue. You will find perspectives included here that speak to the changing body; the dimension of time; the body politic; the body in motion; and the body as a natural organism.
It has always been MORIA's goal to foster diversity in the literary community, a commitment that we are continually working at. For Issue Ten, we had an acceptance rate of 17%. Of our 52 accepted pieces, 65% were from women, 3% were from gender non-conforming or nonbinary, 5% were from writers of color, and 5% were from LGBTQIA+ authors. Our authors for Issue Ten range in age, some are young adults and some senior citizens. Here at MORIA, our understanding is enriched through a variety of perspectives and representation, which we hope to continue to increase in the future.
On behalf of MORIA, I would like to pay tribute to the authors who have made Issue Ten possible, for sharing their words and experiences that will impact our perspective moving forward. During this time of adjusting and moving out of a pandemic, our poets and writers have remained determined and vulnerable in putting their work out there for the public, and we are immensely grateful for this. We would like to pay homage to those in the Woodbury University community who made our work possible. In particular, we’d like to extend gratitude to Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Michele Starkey, for her support; Dr. Reuben Ellis, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, for his belief in the magazine, each and every semester; Dr. Matthew Bridgewater, Chair of the Writing Department, for his leadership; and Lisa Cooper and Rachel Farnsworth, for their administrative work to support our events. Most of all, on behalf of the student editors of MORIA, I’d like to personally thank Dr. Linda Dove, Faculty Editor and benevolent professor, for providing us with guidance every step of the way, so that MORIA is a significant literary magazine. Each one of the members of the editorial board this semester has gained invaluable skills and learned much larger lessons than what we expected last August.
I’m grateful to the staff for the efforts that we’ve contributed in order to make MORIA’s Issue Ten, along with its fifth-year anniversary supplement, happen. Without further ado, may you find pleasure in Issue Ten: Reflection.
Kind Regards,
Nicole Favors, Editor-in-Chief
for the Editors of MORIA Literary Magazine