Moon City Review – 2009

For twenty years, Moon City Review was a student-run biannual journal published by the Missouri State University department of English. With the 2009 issue, the magazine transitions to a “book annual featuring work in various genres from multiple communities; from current students and faculty to celebrated alums and artists of regional, national, and even international reputation.” The new journal will include a section titled “Archival Treasures from the Ozarks,” which will “’bring back’ artists whose works lie languishing, and largely forgotten.” In their lengthy introduction announcing these changes, the editors invite submissions for future issues, which will focus on special themes, though not to the exclusion of other work, to include “speculative fictions,” an alumni issue, and the art and literature of children and adolescents.

For twenty years, Moon City Review was a student-run biannual journal published by the Missouri State University department of English. With the 2009 issue, the magazine transitions to a “book annual featuring work in various genres from multiple communities; from current students and faculty to celebrated alums and artists of regional, national, and even international reputation.” The new journal will include a section titled “Archival Treasures from the Ozarks,” which will “’bring back’ artists whose works lie languishing, and largely forgotten.” In their lengthy introduction announcing these changes, the editors invite submissions for future issues, which will focus on special themes, though not to the exclusion of other work, to include “speculative fictions,” an alumni issue, and the art and literature of children and adolescents.

In its status as a literary-artistic annual (and as an academic small press of the same name), Moon City remains a mythic place, forever a ‘new town’ . . . where Ozarks history and literary artistic-culture can be both remembered and re-constructed, engaging back-and-forth with the rest (and best) of the world.

If every issue includes one feature as interesting as the essay on the inventor of the Kewpie doll, “Portraits of Womanhood in the Artwork of Rose O’Neill,” by Missouri State University professors of English James S. Baumlin and Lanette Cadle, Moon City Review will certainly be worth keeping eye on. Kewpie, a “wildly collectible popular-culture icon” considered the greatest success in the history of toys, turns 100 this year, and the story of the woman who dreamed her up is a fascinating glimpse into issues of class, gender, commercialism, and creativity. The essay includes wonderful photos and illustrations.

Another fine contribution is Billy Clem’s memoir essay, “Some Confirmation: A Gay Man Comes of Age in the Missouri Ozarks.” Clem’s poems also appear in the issue, along with the work of more than a dozen other poets. Clem’s prose is plain, yet appealing, and his writing is at once modest and engaging. His poetry is representative of much of the poetry in the issue, language that avoids heightened, imagistic tendencies and tends towards a casual approach in both tone and diction. A “conversation” between former Missouri State University classmates Kevin Brockmeier and Shannon Wooden, the former now a fiction writer and essayist, and the latter a professor of English, is also worthwhile.
[english.missouristate.edu/moon_city_review.htm]