May | A Second Anniversary Celebration

Dearest Readers,

Well here we are two years in. This issue represents some of the best of what we’ve become as a magazine — a place that prizes heart over technicality, a team who prizes the whole dynamic process of story, an organization who welcomes the messiness of emotion between the nadirs and apogees of life because we live that same life too.

Its been a challenging 2025 for our team. We’ve lost four canine assistants since the turn of the year in addition to other losses and griefs alongside the chaos and uncertainty of the world at large. Even as we, this small quirky family, mourn, we tap into the universal healing power of literature.

We found our own deep sorrow in Victoria Melekian’s poem “The Hesitation is This;” and wonder in this month’s fiction longread “Cupcakes” from Joan Slatoff; and solace in Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s incredibly special CNF, “Kimo.” All fifiteen pieces of this issue, including the exquisite hybrid artwork from Patricia Caspers, combine to demonstrate why we make this magazine. We do so because this is how we move though and forward — together while sharing the whole range of experience, shoring up a foundering day or celebrating some bright surprise with the assurance, “I feel that too.”

Thank you for being a part of this journey, walking beside us as readers, contributors, stumble-uponers, pocket-havers, fellow humans. You and your stories are essential to us and we’ll continue to celebrate them as we step out to greet the next sweep of adventure.

XO,