Special thanks to Joan Leotta, Ken Allan Dronsfield, Cindy Bousquet Harris, and everyone else who offered their kindness, prayers and assistance during this mad rush to publication.
Huge shout out to IVJ editors Jennifer Criss and David Allen for putting in "late hours" to get this issue "live"-I'm buying lunch! ~Janine Pickett
NONFICTION/ESSAY
Donal Mahoney: "My Parents Were Illegal Irish Immigrants in the United States"
Bear Jack Gebhardt: "Consequences that We Rue: An optimistically contrary view of the American Revolution"
Sharon Fame Gay: "4th of July at Birch Lake, Michigan"
FICTION
Muhammad Nasrullah Khan: "Eternal Freedom"
Tom Sheehan: "I Am What I Am Not"
Jay Faulkner: "Shave"
J.L. Higgs: "Something About Her"
Michael Anthony: "Glendora Mississippi-1953"
Donal Mahoney: "Jesus, Can We Talk?"
Godfrey Green: "This Is Your Chance"
Lakesha Landrum: "Don't Look Back"
Stacy Post: "Desperate Pomegranates"
JD DeHart: "Snub"
Lisa Reily: "Into the Sky"
Susan P. Blevins: "Crossing"
VISUAL ART/PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography by Steph Kay
POETRY
Bruce Owens: "Quiet Within" and "Taking a Walk"
Dan Jacoby: "Fort Holabird," "tay ninh 1970," and "national anthem"
Mercedes Webb-Pullman: "The Harbour of Freedom" and "The Dairy-woman's Dance"
Jeff Burt: "Election" and "Independence Day"
Jessica Goody: “Unanswered Prayers” “War Declared” and “Liberty Ladies”
Robert Beveridge: "Freedom," "Liberty" and "Liquid Prisoner"
Prerna Bakshi: "Coming Out," "This Morning," and 'What's the Name of your pind?"
Judy Moskowitz: "Born Into Freedom"
Lazola Pambo: "I Am of This Gender," "Sexual Discourse," and "The Dignity of Human Rights"
David Allen: "What is Freedom," "Freedomland" and "Preparing for the Reunion"
Donal Mahoney: "When My Wife Is In Her Garden," and "The Whole Mad Swirl"
Denise Segal Umans:"The Limestone Quarry," "A Township after Apartheid," and "Gaudi's Parc Guell"
Vincent Francone: "When We Are Not Together...," "Announcement," and "Butter and Bread"
Kara D. Spain: "Era of the Hills," "A Wish: Written on occasion during a stormy day," and "On Dumping Tea in the Boston Harbor"
Candice Louisa Daquin: "Suffrage"
Don Beukes: "Existential Consequential"
Jennifer Hambrick: “Andy Dufresne Speaks at TEDx Zihuatanejo,” “Leaving,” and “Inside Out”
Ken Allan Dronsfield: "1775 Finally Homeward 1783", "Hand to Heart", "Let Freedom Reign"
Jo Barbara Taylor: "Flight," " Finding Your Way," "Liberation," and "Spring Chiamus"
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal: "For Want of Green," "This Parrot," and "You're Free,"
Ryn Holmes: "All-American," "Gray Socks," and "Isolata"
Michael Marrotti: "One Of Life's Lessons"
Pramila Khadun: "The Land of Freedom"
P.J. Reed: "World in a Suitcase" and "Haiku Regarding Freedom"
KJ Carter: "Alas, to be Truly Free" and "A LIfe in the Great War"
Marcia Conover: "Independence Rings," "Summer Visitors," and "Seasons of Color"
Helmi Ben Meriem: "Ara Veug"
Patrick Daniel Read: "The Patriot"
Sherry Howard: "In Memoriam"
Jude Walsh Whelley: "Loose"
John Mark Brown: "Cold Season" and "a burial"
Angel Edwards: "Old Flame"
Lynda McKinney Lambert: "Book of Remembrance in Lidice"
Stephen Regan: "URGH! They have a problem," "Red-bricked," and "Freedom at a price."
Tim Philippart: "Feel Free to Mourn"
Zoe Maynard: “The Shire Horse”
Elizabeth P. Brooks: "Cry Out," " My Freedom," and "Oh Freedom."
Joan Leotta: "Bridge to Freedom."
Mikel K: "I'm a challenge to the process."
Andy Brown: "Freedom Lost," "Death's Freedom," and "Is this Freedom?"