Dear readers,

Welcome to the Summer 2025 Leaflet! Take a pause, pour yourself a cup of tea, and let’s explore the backstage of editors, artists, and writers working together in conversation about creating art. 

Here we hope to spark banter with readers, especially as our audience grows. We feel privileged to connect with the vulnerable makings of writers from around the world. We love reading about diverse cultures, backgrounds, careers, childhood memories, untanglings of grief, smattering of acrylic, anger at gods who speak in spills of crimson, the tender moments of becoming a parent, we are here for it all, the messy first drafts and essays you’ve been submitting to journals for years. We are honored to be a part of your writing process. Witnessing you, even for a brief moment, is like watching a comet ignite a trail of blue across a weave of stars. 

In these leaflets, we get to focus more intentionally on how to create art, and what it means to be a creator. 

As a U.S. based journal, it seems impossible to write to you without expressing our own grief at the current political push to censor, dehumanize and polarize. The value of creativity has been diminished in favor of “productivity”–as though exercising our creative muscles isn’t a productive use of our lives. I’ve taken some time to think about what I’d like to say to you about this. 

My plea is to use art, now more than ever, as a bridge. As writers and artists, a privilege we share is our ability to stop someone, if just for a moment, and make them stare. Our gifts enable us to hold our viewers in a perspective that is not their own and can create a sense of connection, understanding, or questioning. Art can serve many functions. It can be pasta and meatballs arranged on a plate to look like a fish, meant to make someone laugh. It can be a painting of the starry night, meant to explore an innovative style. It can be a photograph of horrors hoped never to be repeated. Regardless, art creates a connection between the viewer and creator. This connection affirms the humanity in all of us.

I don’t know about you, but the longer I spend living on this planet, the more deeply I feel people are meant to laugh, sing, weep, play, change, and create together. I encourage us to lean into these experiences and use art as a bridge to understand and hold one another. Historically, writers and artists have often played an important part in bringing to light the humanity in all of us and truths difficult to witness. I encourage us to continue forward in this good cause. 

And for the days it all feels too heavy to even pick up a pen, it is okay. Emotional burnout waters down creativity. I encourage you, dear reader, to hold yourself. Find whatever simple thing that sparks joy. It doesn’t need to be writing an award winning book right now. Play with glitter, hot glue gun a fairy house, draw flowers using sidewalk chalk, anything to revive your grounding when the air feels like lead. 

Most importantly, thank you for reading. It is because of readers like you we are able to publish meaningful art. We are thankful for this community and hope to continue fostering growth. We’re excited to read more from you soon… or shut the computer and go run through a field, take a hot bath, make fresh tortillas, whatever sparks that art-colored wonder we hunger for. 

Sincerely,
Lauren McKinnon

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