Before submitting, please review our submissions guidelines on the website and our ”About moonShine review” page. I also encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a wide variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.

Please feel free to email any questions you may have to mooneshinereview@carolina.rr.com, but always check the guidelines on the website FIRST, as many questions are readily answered.

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks

Executive Editor and Publisher

MOONSHINE REVIEW

Family is a complicated word. And, I confess, the most conflicted topic I can conceive.  So, when the stories came together this time and coalesced into an issue about family, I wasn’t surprised. The other editors confirmed what I saw—this is one of the most honest collections of stories we’ve ever had.

Whether repugnant, tragic, or just plain quirky, these characters speak openly of what family means. Generally, it has little to do with unconditional love. Sometimes, they express kindness in the way it’s meant; sometimes, they show the worst side of life. Often, these protagonists are laugh-out-loud funny, even when dark.

Through these stories, we are pushed to look beyond birthright to see not only what our parents made us, but also that we are so much more.  If we’re lucky, we develop the wisdom to expand our definition of family to include friends and partners—siblings beyond blood, siblings of mutual experience and understanding.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:

Terry Barr
Doris Thomas Browder
Vicki Collins
Julie Ann Cook
Toye Eskridge
Owen Harper
Holly Raychelle Hughes
Kathryn Etters Lovatt
Steve Mitchell
Jendi Reiter
Bob Strother
Elizabeth B. Watson
Myra Yeatts
and Featured Photographer, Lu G. Collazo

The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues.

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth Cagle Burt
Senior Editor

Claire Armstrong
Fiction Editor and Marketing Agent

Leslie M. Rupracht
Fiction & Photography Editor

Please, before submitting, FIRST read the “About moonShine review” page on our website to gain some insight as to what our journal is all about, then carefully read our “Submissions Guidelines.”  And I encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a wide variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.

Please feel free to email any questions you may have to mooneshinereview@carolina.rr.com, but always check the guidelines on this website FIRST, as many questions are readily answered here.

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

We all seek magic in life—those allusive yet elusive moments when a miracle takes place and the wisdom to recognize it hits us in a euphoric blast; in that moment, we recognize the miraculous and revel in it.

Whether the characters within these pages achieve such connections or merely brush past them, readers are given the option to fully view that which, in the everyday, so easily escapes us.

The stories in this issue provide a canvas of juxtaposition: perceptions run the gamut from jaded to innocent, from honest grief to petty blustering. Still, concurrent themes emerge to give us a difficult to digest yet simple message: that tragedy and death are inevitable—the choice lies in how we respond—and that, even at our worst, we are capable of defying the easy way out and making true change to ourselves.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:
Peter Tieryas Liu
David Jordan
Richard Allen Taylor
Maureen Ryan Griffin
Holly Raychelle Hughes
Bob Strother
Ed R. Green
Kimberlyn Blum-Hyclak
Lisa Rubenson
Gary V. Powell
Jason Newport
And Featured Photographer Jessie Carty

The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues.

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth Cagle Burt
Senior Editor

Leslie M. Rupracht
Fiction & Photography Editor

Claire Armstrong
Fiction Editor and Marketing Agent

Stay tuned … we will announce the next issue’s contributors and preview the cover within the next two weeks.  AND we are planning a celebration reading in early to mid-June.

We hope to see you all at our next event.  And thank you for your continued, devoted support.  Without you, there wouldn’t be a moonShine.

Sincerely,
Anne M. Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher, moonShine review

I do want to point out that those submitting should FIRST read the “About moonShine review” page on our website to gain some insight as to what our journal is all about.  And I encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.  (Of course, I understand it is late in the game now to read an issue, but please look over the whole website at least.)

And then you should very carefully read the revised submission guidelines.  No, the basic guidelines have not changed, but I have clarified much and added detail where it was needed — and tried even more to stress what we require.  I truly appreciate some of the questions people have posed in emails directly to me, and I want to make sure those questions are answered for everyone.

And I now realize there’s a reason why I encounter LONG notes from editors on their guidelines pages.  It appears we do have to say something more than once (or ten times) to get our point across to some.  Thus, I would like to reiterate here that we judge your entries anonymously, so it is extremely important that you NOT include your name or any personal information on the pieces you submit.  That is for the cover page, where you should list the titles of the stories you are submitting.  Trust me.  I will see to it that your story gets “reattached” to you once the judging has been completed.  That’s a promise.

But there’s more to it than leaving your name off the piece.  It is very important to us that your piece is formatted to meet certain basic standards, i.e., double space, indent the first lines of paragraphs, do NOT put extra spaces between paragraphs, do NOT use fancy fonts (Times New Roman, 12 point, is our preference).  And PLEASE do not highlight your story title uniquely nor place lines on the page that are markedly unusual, or include any design element whatsoever. 

We have three main reasons for the above requests:

(1) Please appreciate that we have MANY entries to read, and our eyes get tired.  It benefits you to make it easier on us.  We get “testy” after the tenth story that looks “unique”  (especially when “unique” equals harder to read).

(2) When you submit more than one piece for consideration, and all of them have your “personal look” that is different from anyone else’s, we can’t judge “anonymously” because we already know we’ve read something by you.

(3) We judge based on the content, not the context.  You should be confident that your piece speaks for itself and doesn’t need anything “fancy” to get it passed through.  This is not a job interview, and your piece doesn’t need to stand out visually like a resume.  It needs to speak for itself.

(4) [I said three because I wanted you to read 4 ...]  Most folks volunteer all of their time and commitment to this journal, including judges.  But that also includes those individuals who (a) sort all the entries, (b) make sure that a comprehensive spreadsheet is created with every entry’s personal information and the pieces submitted, (c) number all of the pieces so that we can judge anonymously, (d) check all of the information for accuracy, and (e) make multiple copies of each of your entries for each judge.  In deference to the many hours these volunteers are already willing and eager to give, it is not fair to ask them to also “white out names and personal information” and check every page of every story for this.  (I didn’t even include the time it takes to open all the envelopes!)

I hate to go on about this, and I do so appreciate the many, many, MANY folks who have followed all of the guidelines each and every time they have submitted to us.  But it is a fact that people don’t read instructions carefully, even writers … and that’s our gig!

So, again, I encourage you to check out our submission guidelines.  I encourage you to ask me any question that is not already apparent on the guidelines page.  That only helps me to improve, and I want to make this process good for you as well as us.  I take full responsibility for anything that has been omitted and want to correct that whenever possible.

And please know that we want you to submit!  Again, this has been the greatest turnout ever, and we are so excited to get down to work!

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

The eyes have it, literally and metaphorically. From cover to cover, this issue displays the art of “seeing.” Separately, these stories and pictures depict all manner of storytelling, from the grotesque to the fanciful. Together, they blend to create a shrewd perspective of the complicated world in which we live, highlighting the virtuous and aberrant aspects of that world.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:
Billie Bierer
Susan M. Boyer
Jessie Carty
Peg Daniels
Kate V.M. Ferguson
Gary V. Powell
Tom Quinn
S. Craig Renfroe Jr.
Susan Snowden
Bob Strother
Charlotte Wolf
and Featured Photographer Clarke Armstrong

 The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues. 

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth Cagle Burt
Senior Editor

Leslie M. Rupracht
Fiction & Photography Editor

Claire Armstrong
Fiction Editor and Marketing Agent