House Constructed

This Autumn we invited contributors to send us work on the theme of HOUSE. This theme emerged out of the Beauties and Beasts theme from last season. In Disney’s final scene when the enchantment is broken, the Beast’s castle transforms from something dark and haunted into something bright and colorful. Like the castle, every house can be a shapeshifter. Some houses seem to be constantly under construction, with walls popping up here and coming down over there, and whole new wings and corridors added or removed. I grew up in a house like this. Even houses that maintain a stable form may be bought and sold many times, and eventually come to hold the different stories of their various inhabitants over the years. 

The Mandarin House this season certainly has a lot of inhabitants. We received more submissions than ever and we are publishing twice the amount of work we have in the past. We are so honored to present the work of writers and artists from New York, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Montana, Virginia, Washington, and California (including, of course, our home town of Chico!) In this sense, The Mandarin House is not only a shape shifter but also a teleporter, popping up in different locations across the country to collect the stories of that unique place and time.