Inside the January/February 2024 Issue
2024—are we here already?
Wars rage. An election looms. A probable candidate sits trial. I must admit: a younger me wished for better.
What keeps this all from being pure doom and gloom is the possibility that this year still could be formed to our collective advantage. We are at the start; there is time! We can still turn our immediate tomorrows into hopeful ones, and peaceful ones, and ones in which empathy wins out over anger and fear. We don’t always seem to have learned from the past, but there are still opportunities for us to do so. We have not done better yet, but we can.
Being able to sit with perspectives that are different from, or that challenge, our own is so crucial to that hopeful tomorrow-making. Readers know this; it’s part of what keeps us coming back for more. And our historical fiction feature is always an issue favorite in part because of this knowledge. In this year’s selections, authors make concerted efforts to reveal new truths about the past and to unearth nuances in stories that we may otherwise treat as flat. Those who cocooned, comforted, and loved Emily Dickinson and Vincent Van Gogh, ferrying their work into the public’s consciousness after their deaths, are honored here; beside them, there are stories that revisit revolutions and the 1492 expulsion of Spain’s Jews, refreshing the relevance of their focal events. There are lessons to learn and quieted voices to hear.
No: I cannot pretend that this issue wasn’t prepared in difficult times. Among the pages I turned for it, I admit I sought momentary escape. In this way and in others, The Fair Folk became my own season favorite—a tale both fresh and timeless, that reckons with what we gamble when we seek out magic to soothe our pain. Its heroine learns hard lessons amid enchantments; she sees the other side of wishes granted. Still, I’ll carry her revelation with me this year—a mantra of hope:
“People do learn. That’s what so many … stories are about: getting it wrong, and then learning how to get it right. Living through and taking responsibility. It’s part of how we grow up.”
Sincerely,
Michelle Anne Schingler
Editor in Chief
mschingler@forewordreviews.com
Did you know we pick out the most compelling books from every issue of Foreword Reviews for a series of reviewer-author interviews? That’s right, every Thursday, our digital newsletter Foreword This Week spotlights our top reviewers pitching a set of provocative questions to the authors of the books they admire. Sign up here and join the thousands of readers who relish these entertaining conversations between literary hotshots.
Here’s a link to the reviews we’re covering in our January/February 2024 issue.
Michelle Anne Schingler
