We are tremendously grateful to so many of you for making 2022 a positive year of creative energy here at Longridge Review.

• To everyone who sent us their best work, and in doing so kept our mission powerful.
• To Diane Gottlieb and Beatrice Motamedi for making financial gifts to help keep the lights on around here.
• To Sonja Livingston for serving as our judge for the #BarnhillPrize and also for donating her honorarium to keep us sustainable.
• To Mike Smith, Anne Barnhill’s son, who has supported us in diverse ways for years.
• To our sharp and dedicated team of readers/editors who always ask the right questions and bring their hearts and minds to the craft of creative nonfiction.
• To my parents, both of whom died this month but who always gave me their full support and believed in this work.
• To everyone who read and shared essays and showed our writers the love.

Returning to Mike Smith, he wrote in 2022 about reading our contest finalists’ essays:

I pledged to seek the same reverence for language and seriousness of purpose I watched my mother bring to such tasks, perhaps remembering her own long push to publication. To be taken seriously and read well was often the only encouragement she needed. 

Mike Smith, Finishing My Mother’s Last Book, storySouth Issue 54

To be taken seriously and read well.

We pledge to deliver this gift to you in 2023 and beyond.

Thanks again to all, and Happy New Year.