RABBLE REVIEW No.9: Editor Update #1

Hello RABBLE REVIEW readers, we hope you’re having a good summer, or as good of a summer as you can have given current circumstances. We’re still here, hard at work on building our ninth issue. It’s so fucking hot, sorry, I hate summer. It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit here in California, yesterday. I hate it. Hate it! Anyway, I just wanted to do a little developer diary and give you a quick update on how that is going, how the team is doing, and our roadmap for the months ahead.

Where is RABBLE REVIEW No.9?

It’s coming! Right now we are still in the layout phase, choosing which piece goes where, and next to what. Fun fact, we actually figure out our theme and central thesis for each issue during this phase. We do not have a stated theme in our submission call. Maybe one day we’ll have a theme for an issue. That could be fun. But due to the political nature of our literary journal, we usually find a throughline that is responding to the current moment in time, or some other anxiety. One thing that I noticed early on is that the pieces appearing in Issue No.9 are celebrating the quieter, and ordinary, aspects of life. Either that, or it is speaking to a helplessness and frustration in response to the political moment. Keep in mind the submission window was open for the month of April. Think of all the shit that has happened since April 2025? The United States bombed Iran in June! Remember that? The funniest part about the speed of this moment is that whenever this issue is released, I think it will still feel like a direct response to whatever is currently happening. Anyone with their finger on the pulse can very clearly see where we are going. And it doesn’t look good.

So yeah, that’s where we’re at. We do our work on a site called Miro, with all of our accepted pieces on the board, and we each sort them out into our own vision of the issue. Then we come together, talk through our choices and take bits and pieces from each board until we have a single unified line. And that ends up being the issue. Hopefully we get that phase soon. Then we start building the pages, choosing the colors and aesthetics. Then we proofread, make more changes, and soon after that the issue is out.

How is the team doing?:

Without getting into specifics, I’ll just say that policies have real effects on human lives. I think we sometimes forget that when we are getting into debates on social media. We often flatten the issues of the day into a simple talking point. Immigration isn’t something happening, it’s a politician talking to a CNN anchor about the “need” for a border wall. But these policies are not cherry-picked statistics, it is a policy that affects real people. It is a reality that has shaped our own approach to politics. And I’ll just say that this specific moment in time is scary! And it is affecting the mental health of our entire team. There is a tangible weight, stress, and anxiety that rests on anyone being targeted by the policies of a fascist administration. Two of the three members of the RABBLE REVIEW team live in California. Here in California, there are protests happening in response to the abhorrent actions by ICE (the law enforcement wing of immigration and border enforcement). And that is because we are literally seeing agents of the state come into our streets to kidnap and terrorize our neighbors and our friends. It’s a scary time and that fear is an active stressor on the RABBLE REVIEW team right now. So please continue to speak up for your immigrant neighbors, and your undocumented angers. Be direct about it, both in your words and actions. Because things are deteriorating fast. And after the passage of a certain bill (of considerable size), things are going to get a lot scarier in the coming weeks.

RABBLE REVIEW’s 2025 roadmap:

So we started a Discord server! Please join us there, where we will be planning community virtual events. We also want to try to do something IRL at some point for any Southern California based RABBLE REVIEW community members. We are going to do another livestream at some point, and we’ll have more details to share as we near the release of RABBLE REVIEW No.9. We also want to do some more interviews with our contributors both past and present. If you are a contributor across any of our 9 issues and are interested in chatting with us then email us at editor@rabblereview.com!

We also have more plans for our website. We want to start featuring some of our published work on our site, promote upcoming projects from our contributors, and share more blog posts as well.

Become a supporter:

We gave you all new ways to give us money. We’re happy that you’re here, but if you ever wanted to support us financially, you can give us donations. It can be a one-time donation, or an ongoing subscription. We’ve used money from our own pockets to keep things running, and we were happy to do so, but if you can support, we’d appreciate it! Donors will either be featured on our donor wall on our site, or in an issue of RABBLE REVIEW!

ICYMI:

On our social media channels I posted some information about the editors at RABBLE REVIEW! So check them out if you want to know more about me, Jer, and Angel. Ever wanted to know what my favorite movie is? No? Too bad! Go check it out. And I also wrote a blog post that went up at the end of May, which feels even more relevant today. It’s about my overall frustration with the obsession on Trump as a singular evil figure. The whole damn system is broken! Or something like that, check it out if you want.

Thanks for reading, reader. We still don’t have a date for RABBLE REVIEW No.9, but when we do we’ll be sure to let you know. Have a great rest of your day and stay safe out there.