Shot Glass Journal Issue #49 features poetic voices from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Guernsey, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Uzbekistan, the UK, and the US. For the past two issues we are pleased to have published many poets new to Shot Glass Journal.

Several poets congratulated me during this issue on our 16 years of publishing Shot Glass Journal. When we're heads down trying to read through the volume of submissions, we often lose track. Looking back when we first started the journal and needed to solicit poets for our inaugural issue, I wasn't sure there would be enough interest in the journal to continue. But every issue has gotten more submissions than we can handle. Our editorial staff always come through to help get this issue to production. We would be nowhere without our webmaster, Lonnard Dean Watkins, who performs miracles to create the new issue, and to archive the old. Congratulations and thank you Lonnard, for your skill, and for your patience with our poets and with your editor.

Please check out the Writer Archive to look back at previous issues to see the previous works of these poets, and check out our Archives to see the work of other poets from the past.

Muse-Pie Press has a listing called MPP Community which features poems of the poets we have published in Shot Glass Journal and the Fib Review. Visit the site at www.musepiepress.com and click on MPP Community. This page gives information on the poetry books and how to obtain them.

It's been six years since we published the Community poem. In March 2020, Muse-Pie Press invited its poets to participate in creating a world-wide Community poem. We wanted to capture the individual experiences and insights of these poets regarding the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic. There were 220 submissions received from 16 countries. R. G. Rader, publisher of Muse-Pie Press, compiled each line and crafted the poem "Pandemic: A Community Poem" into a poem of seven parts. In these troubled times, it is a good reminder for what we've experienced in our recent past. To read and listen to the poem visit the Muse-Pie Press site at www.musepiepress.com and click on Community Poem.

We hope you enjoy Issue #48.

Wishing you peace and health,
– Mary-Jane Grandinetti

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