Dr. Raina J. León

February 15, 2011

Poetry

This past winter holiday I took a trip to Egypt as an escape from the frigid gloom of Germany. After a brief stop at the Red Sea, I traveled on the Nile.   My camera was a constant companion, especially beloved as I was on a German tour, and while my German is passable in a restaurant, it definitely was not sufficient for academic lessons on the 5000 year history of Egypt.  Still, I found myself fascinated by the depictions of women over time, particularly in the case of Hatshepsut, one of the few women to have claimed the title of pharaoh, and the goddesses Isis and Hathor.  How fitting to be so enchanted and then to introduce this first installment of The Acentos Review February 2011 issue, one in which all of the poets are women.  Within their verse, they are warrior and caretakers, shifters and sculptors.  They open a portal.  It is time to walk in. 

Check in later for the second installment from fiction and nonfiction. 

Rich Villar

February 22, 2011

Fiction and Nonfiction

Is it possible to be stimulated and desensitized at the same time?  If you were at the AWP conference in Washington this year, you would say yes.  Hope: In the hubbub of book fairs and offsite readings, there is always a full slate of Latino and Latina editors, writers, and thinkers; presentes, and reminding us of the strong state of Latino/a letters.  I was honored to represent this journal at a panel for race and inclusivity in publishing, and the Acentos Foundation co-hosted a reading in response to Arizona's SB 1070 law.  And now it is my honor to bring this energy, this mission, into the fiction and nonfiction sections of The Acentos Review.  These characters are haunted by iconography, by fathers, by themselves.  None of the narratives are easy or expected.  Which we prefer.