Hello friends,

I'd like to take a moment to talk about our extremely long wait time for publication after acceptance. Over the past couple years we've grown a bit in readership and in popularity I guess? Popularity is probably not the right word for it, but I can't think of anything else right now. As such, our wait times have increased between the moment that you are accepted for publication and the moment that you appear in the journal. Of course it's different for all categories; some show up quicker than others. But definitely for poetry and fiction, it's a long, long weight. I mention this as often as I can, because I know how frustrating it can be to be accepted for something and then hear almost nothing back for a while. So I try to be as forthright as I can be by tweeting about these things, posting them on Instagram, and mentioning them in this very editor's letter!

Sometimes, though, someone will contact me who obviously doesn't read or follow the journal and complain about the wait time. These are always people who haven't waited too long, definitely not the whole year yet, and demand my time and attention because they decided they don't want to read their acceptance letter, especially the part about the long wait time or the part about not inquiring until X amount of months have passed as to where the piece is. I promise your piece is always going to be where you left it: in Submittable. I'm not going to lose it, though sometimes I do miss categorize things. I'm only human, and each issue cannot be 1 million pages long. Our team is made up of people who are admittedly slow at doing the voting and acceptances and rejections, because we all have real lives beyond this unpaid position at Drunk Monkeys. We all have families, jobs, crises. Sometimes things get difficult. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the last two years of been really tough mentally for everyone, and I ask that you give us a little bit of grace when waiting for your piece to appear.

I promise I'm not trying to sound like a bitch, I truly am not. But I also will not take abuse from people who do not want to read our journal but for some reason want to appear in it. Or people who do not want to look at their acceptance letter and understand the long wait time. I am as transparent as I can possibly be at all times.

As of my writing this, we do actually have a couple categories open, even though it's technically our off month for submissions. These categories are film and music essays as well as art for our Pop Culture issue next month. We are also in need of One Perfect Episode submissions, and It's Good, Actually submissions, and you can send all of those in through the non-fiction category that is open right now in submittable (except art which goes in the art category). I will keep this open until the end of March. In case you're not aware, One Perfect Episode covers an episode of television that you think is perfect; It's Good, Actually covers movies that you think are good even though everybody else hates them. They will not be a one year wait for these categories, I need them for next month. Have at it! We will reopen for all submissions in April.

The title of this issue comes from my favorite song on The Who's Tommy album, "See Me, Feel Me/ Listening To You." This is on the movie soundtrack, not the actual Tommy album. I'm really enamored by this song, and I listen to it pretty much constantly. I love the way Roger Daltry says "I get the music, gazing at you I get the heat", like whoever he's gazing at is the most wonderful person on earth. Like he might die without them. All of his faith and love wrapped up in this one person. Adoration. Maybe it's just how I feel about the people I love when I think about them when I listen to that song. I adore so many people. Sometimes I feel like I don't come off as somebody who is as loving as I actually am, and I know I've talked about love a lot in the past few editor's letters. Sometimes I am just so filled with the thought of the love I feel that I can barely handle it. A real American Beauty moment— a "single plastic bag dancing in the wind" moment. But I'm a sentimental person, and I love people very much. That's all. I wanted you to know that.

I hope this letter finds you well and full of love. I hope you're safe and healthy and getting through each day. Next month is our gigantic Pop Culture issue, and we're very excited for it. This is always our favorite issue and a lot of hard work goes into it. Thank you for being here with us, thank you for waiting patiently if you appeared in this journal this month, thank you for everything.

Always,

KCH