WELCOME MESSAGE

The resistance is alive and well
on Milwaukee Avenue

by MATT McCARTHY, Editor & Publisher

Welcome, dear readers, to the Winter 2026 Issue of the Milwaukee Avenue Messenger. Tough sledding all around this winter. I thought about calling it “The Winter of Our Discontent Issue” but that seemed too pessimistic. Too whiney. Milwaukee Avenue is the land of the brawling big shoulders not whiney whiners. 

So, we come to fight. 

Fuck ICE. Fuck Trump. 

And thank you for reading (this is still the Midwest, afterall). 

These are sinister times, friends. Fascist goons and their boot-lick lackeys are doing their damnedest to destroy democracy in this country. U.S. cities face belligerent occupation by federal troops. Free speech is under attack and free elections are being openly threatened. Human beings are rounded up like animals and U.S. citizens are gunned down in the streets by politically motivated masked thugs who (for now) answer to no one but the great orange limp dick-tator himself. 

It’s demoralizing to watch it unfold every day. And that’s intentional. It’s classic “shock and awe.” Hit us with so much evil, so much bullshit, so much corruption all at once that we feel helpless by the sheer scale of it. It’s meant to overwhelm us, to subdue us, to scare the fight right out of us.

Last winter, I watched, horrified, as Trump took power again and began dismantling our democratic institutions. I watched mainstream media and much of corporate America fall in line and bend the knee. I watched the other branches of government do the same. I heard the rhetoric of hate and fear and division. And I heard the constant lies: down is up, war is peace, don’t believe what you see and hear with your own eyes and ears, this is normal.

I felt helpless at first. But by spring, I’d hatched a humble plan to start publishing a quarterly arts and literary journal with a special focus on my community and on my neighborhood. Because I had to do something, and this was something I could do. 

And I firmly believe art is a key form of resistance.

Through their work, artists document injustice and inspire action. They challenge preconceived notions and authority. They give voice to the oppressed and build empathy. They bring comfort and hope and joy. They build community. 

This is our third issue since we launched in the summer of 2025 (third time’s a charm). I’m proud of each of these little books (visit the first two issues in the online archives if you haven’t read them), and enormously grateful to all the writers, poets, and artists who contributed their work to this journal. We’ve been fortunate to publish the original work of more than 60 talented individuals, all but a few local to Chicago, in these first three issues.

Each time we put out the call for submissions and the work starts rolling in, my faith is restored. In the toughest climate for the arts in my lifetime, these artists are still finding a way to get it done. They’re not running and hiding. They’re digging in and doing the work. 

Those are the people who make the Milwaukee Avenue Messenger go.

And it’s not just the artists.

To all the local businesses who have supported us by carrying the Messenger for sale on their shelves, or allowing us to use their space for events; to the Logan Square Arts Foundation, and Avondalia, and the Avondale Arts, who were in our corner from the start; and to all the readers who bought the Messenger and who supported us online and at our events this past year: thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. 

The resistance is alive and well on Milwaukee Avenue because of all of you.