8Connecticut Literary Anthology features thirty-six Connecticut poets and prose writers from across the Nutmeg State. The 2020 Anthology is published by the Central Connecticut State University English Department. The writers in the inaugural anthology share themes amplified by current events, but not the context. Stories of family, economic in-equality, social justice, culture wars, lost love, aging, and gender-they're all in here. And mangoes. Everyone loves mangoes. Featured writers: Janet L. Bannister, Charles V. Belson, Susan Cinoman, Ginny Lowe Connors, Jason Courtmanche, Catherine DeNunzio, Joanie DiMartino, Catherine DeNunzio, Meghan Evans, Maura Faulise, Kathryn Fitzpatrick, Beth Gibbs, Cecilia Gigliotti, Nichole Gleisner, Sitara Gnanaguru, Emi Gonzalez, José B. González, Benjamin S. Grossberg, Avery Jenkins, B. Fulton Jennes, Sarah Darer Littman, Kiran Masroor, Melissa McEwen, Claudia McGhee, Nancy McMillan, Jean P. Moore, Steven Ostrowski, Makenzie Ozycz, Aimee Pozorski, Kara Molway Russell, Vivian Shipley, Amy Sisson, Katherine A. Szpekman, Wendy Terry, Mika Taylor, Marina Timone, Jason Wilkins. Praise for Anthology: "It feels like we have become unglued from one another since March of 2020; masked strangers passing each other in anonymity. But this anthology glues us back together and helps us find ways to heal and talk with one another. Important stories are told, and we should heed them." -Lisa Comstock, Director for Connecticut Center for the Book"The Connecticut Literary Anthology brings together poets, fiction writers, and essayists to create a snapshot of the rich and varied work being done in the Nutmeg State. Well-known authors appear alongside new ones, and while all the contributors live in Connecticut, their concerns range far across time and space. We travel aboard a 19th-century whaler in Joanie DiMartino's "Moon on a Half Shell," accompany a military strongman awaiting delivery of a Chechen submarine in Mika Taylor's short story "Admiral Iasko Dreams of the Sea," and in Sitara Gnanaguru's poem "Mulling Spices," we follow a speaker seeking connections to ancestral Tamil roots by way of a spice rack.These accessible, mostly short works form a collection alert to our moment. Kathryn Fitzpatrick's brilliant, biting satire "Welcome Aboard the Garrett Briggs Campaign" is a Kafkaesque dissection of the soap-opera absurdities of American political campaigns. In the anthology's opening piece, B. Fulton Jennes considers the seclusion imposed by Covid-19 through the lens of a tender love poem. And in 2020 especially, many readers may have found themselves resorting to the strategy of the Black mother in Melissa McEwen's quietly anguished pantoum: bombarded by police killings of Black boys, she "prays hard and turns down the sound when the news is on."The voices in this anthology offer us a mirror of our times, reflections of other times, and meditations on the state of our hearts. Readers looking for evidence of Connecticut's vibrant literary community will find it here." -Sarah P. Strong, The Mouth of Earth