Mission

Consequence Forum addresses the consequences, realities, and experiences of war and geopolitical violence through literature, art, and community events. We provide the public with works and voices from around the world to promote a clearer and more nuanced understanding of what’s at stake in choosing to wage war or engage in conflict.

WHAT WE DO

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Literary Journals

A biannual anthology of international authors and artists in both print and digital formats

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Substack

Our blogging platform spotlighting guest contributors, book lists, and less-traditional work

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Online Features

New biweekly prose, poetry, and visual art, including video essays and author readings

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Of Consequence

An online series of readings, panels, and Q&As with artists and those with expertise in conflict

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Writing Workshops

Online courses that help individuals develop their creative writing craft or professional writing skills

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Partnership Opportunities

Opportunities for interns, volunteers, organizations, or those for whom cost is a participation barrier

Newest Publications and Events

Daybreak: A Novel by Matt Gallagher

A Review by Dewaine Farria

The notion of “the good war”—a just, nationwide effort against an obvious and perilous aggressor—pulses through Matt Gallagher’s latest novel, Daybreak (Simon & Schuster, Feb 20, 2024). This notion has perhaps been freshly reinstated in American public discourse, though Gallagher reminds us that it never ceased to throb in the veteran community—that tiny sliver of our population who fought the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) most of us ignored.

Poetry Workshop: Aug. 15th - Sept. 19th

This six-week poetry course is a hands-on generative workshop. Each week the class will focus on different strategies to create poems and on a variety of techniques that make poetry writing rewarding.

Learn More

The Shadow of Our Own Bomb

Fiction by Shannon Frost Greenstein

It was a legal lynching which smears with blood a whole nation. By killing the Rosenbergs, you have quite simply tried to halt the progress of science by human sacrifice. Magic, witch-hunts, autos-da-fé, sacrifices—we are here getting to the point: your country is sick with fear . . . you are afraid of the shadow of your own bomb.

—Jean-Paul Sartre (1953)

Captive

Translations by Nuno Camarneiro (Author) / Michele Bantz (Translator)

“O Fogo Será a Tua Casa (Fire Shall Be Your Home) by Nuno Camarneiro was published in Portugal in 2018. It tells the story of an international group of hostages being held by rebels in an unnamed war-torn country in the Middle East and focuses on the day-to-day experiences of the main character—a Portuguese writer researching a project.”

War Dog

Nonfiction by Reed Kuehn

A personal essay that uses form to get at the ineffable.

Silent Night

Fiction by Kathy Bergen

“Laughter splutters forth from the gathered members of the international press corps, who are bunking in this confiscated manor outside of Nuremberg for the duration of the Nazi war crimes trials. A few of the lollygaggers crush out their cigarettes and join the efforts to prop up the beast.”

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2, Item E

Poetry by Kate Pyontek

“In June, the apricot tree sagged
with squat fruit that fell splat
on the sidewalk. Children
jumped for the velvet orbs
By mid-July, all had disappeared.“

How you can get involved

Learn about our publications, classes, events, and volunteer opportunties as soon as they are announced

COMMUNITY IMPACT COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Newsletter Subscribers

Public Events Hosted

Translated Languages Published

Partnership Orgs

Conflicts Represented

What previous contributors and attendees have to say

Phil Klay—former Marine Corps officer, National Book Award Winner, and Guggenheim Fellow

In a culture where war-making is obscured, and the costs rendered invisible, Consequence performs the essential function of highlighting the experience of war from every angle, from participants and observers, combatants and civilians, and artists of all types across international boundaries. That’s why I’m especially grateful to have been included in their pages at a time when most other journals passed on my work. If there is a way forward, it must come from the sort of thinking and humanistic engagement done in the pages of Consequence.

Dzvinia Orlowsky and Ali Kinsella—shortlisted for the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize for their translation of Natalka Bilotserkivets's Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow

Consequence Forum gives dignity to damaged and threatened communities, to lives that refuse to settle silently in the thresholds between displacement and a sense of place and self. We are grateful to include our co-translations from the Ukrainian of poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets and Halyna Kruk among other voices that rise above hard-hitting realities to hard-earned revelations.

Elliot Ackerman—former Marine Corps special operations team leader, New York Times bestselling author, and National Book Award nominee

Consequence nurtures the voices of Veterans and brings their stories to both a reading audience and an artistic community, which they have created. Finding community and being heard is what allows Veterans to reintegrate into society, making the work done by Consequence essential.