Dear readers, 

It is with a glad heart that I welcome you to The Turning Leaflets! Inside these pages we aim to provide a snapshot of the goings-on at our magazine, including contributor news, as well as insights and commentary on the wider literary community. We very much value connection, commentary, and constructive feedback, and hope that this project serves as a springboard for a wider and more involved dialogue! We want our readers and contributors to feel welcomed and heard here: this is a place for you, beyond the confines of the submission-publication process. 

One of my own personal goals this year has been to foster and build a strong and wide-ranging community, somewhere to share the joys of writing as well as connect on a personal level. I believe that especially right now, during a time when automation and efficiency are prioritized above human connection, it is especially invaluable to draw resource from one another and create unique, uplifting art which captures the intricacy and imperfection of life and personhood. I am personally extremely excited to hear from you all what’s going on in your worlds, get to know you a bit better, and celebrate in you successes and achievements! 

I find creative pursuits such as writing to be transformative yet self-affirming processes; the things that I write, also write me, and along the way I discover I’m still in the process of becoming. I’m my longest unfinished project, and that seems to me to be a huge part of humanizing our experience. Writing can be a grueling, unforgiving process, and I believe many of us (myself included) can become wrapped up in others’ perception and lose sight of our original creative goals. I hope that within this community, we can focus not on perfection but progression: on openly giving and receiving constructive feedback and maintaining authenticity throughout our creative works. We very much value the insights and experiences of our readers and contributors alike, and would love nothing more than to offer a place where open dialogue and diversity encourage the ready flow of ideas and inspiration. 

We sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to the unfolding of this project, including of course the editorial and reading team here at The Turning Leaf, as well as all of our past, present, and future contributors and readers! If it takes a village to raise a child, then it certainly merits a hardworking group of individuals to bring a literary project to life! We have so many wonderful moments and stories to share with you, and we hope you find comfort and hope in these pages as we have. 

This is an exciting new chapter for us at The Turning Leaf Journal, and we hope you are just as excited as we are! Here’s to this ever-unfolding thing we call life—let’s make it the best it can be, together!

Warmly, and with love,
K.M. Hanslik

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