It might be that my wilder years are catching up to me, but more likely it’s the constant inundation—often in flashing neon—of Breaking News™ that has me prone to fatigue more than ever before. The drowse is heavy and constant. Like so many, the past year and a half (though nebulously banded together in resistance to hatred and political twaddle) saw me push aside concerns of art or creation to try to help prevent baseline decency from crumbling away. I know now that these concerns overlap—that part of a healthy society’s function sees its honest makers lifted up as important voices. Activism comes in many forms.

Still, mass confusion is the opposition’s endgame, and late capitalism’s absurdity grows ever far-reaching: the fugue state of the union extends into 2018.

I see each piece in this issue as wrestling with that fugue in some way—a chronicle of being lost in the tumult, a reflective moment of stillness in the storm, a woeful resignation to patterns of destruction unchanged, a hopeful plea that the future might be even a tad brighter…despite.

In presenting this Winter issue to you, it is my wish that the contained work does just that—brings even a tiny pop of brightness to your life that you can then carry with you during the humdrum day, cradling & nourishing it, with the ultimate goal of sharing the goodness that art can be with others who might need it.

I’d like to especially thank Managing Editor Ben Evans for trusting me to fill this fine space with quality work while he was abroad, and to Daniel DeVaughn who helped wrangle some excellent voices into the fold. But, above all, my sincere thanks to you, dear reader, for the privilege of your time and interest.

Michael McDermit
Associate Editor