Hello,

For this issue, I’m keeping this letter brief. We’re publishing at the end of a week that has been long and emotional and unimaginably difficult for so many people, and I’m cautious about detracting from other conversations at hand. It’s my hope that you’ll read Issue Six, and it will bring some modicum of relief, however small. These past few days, when I often had trouble parsing my thoughts, it was reading that helped. I am thankful for the multitudes of writers who have come forward this week with their words, who have offered perspectives different from my own and have said, implicitly and sometimes explicitly: This is what matters. Pay attention. Listen. I am thankful that they have given voice to those our culture would so often prefer silence from. I am thankful for the editors who have ushered these words forward, and for the publications that understand the power of visibility and have given them a home, and for those who work consistently and tirelessly—not just this week, but always—to say: Our conversations cannot be monochromatic.

Issue Six is our last of 2014. In it, you will find stories of loneliness, of connectivity, of our determination to rely on one another in times of duress. You will find commentary on police brutality, and the turbulent and violent narratives so often repeated throughout our collective history, and the ways in which literature can change for the better. You will find humor alongside pathos, familiarity alongside something new. I hope we can provide you with something meaningful during this time.

Rebecca Rubenstein
Editor-in-Chief
Thanksgiving Day, 2014