Issue Thirteen – November 2024

Letter from the Founding Editor

There’s something about the change in seasons that revitalizes me and makes me feel like the canvas is clean and I’m free to paint with new colors. A couple of days ago where I live, the nighttime temperature dipped below freezing for the first time this season. The air was crisp and the ground was dusted with a fine frost. I walked up the hill behind the buildings on the farm to get a sense of winter’s hand spreading across the landscape and saw something that amazed me. A whole field of frost flowers spread out in front of me like a garden dressed all in white. The delicate blooms of ice curled out of the woody stems of certain plants – crownbeard and ironweed chief among them. Considered weeds, these tall plants grow abundantly in the non-forested sections of the farm. I’d seen frost flowers before, but not in such numbers decorating an entire hillside.

The thing about frost flowers is that they are delicate and temporary. They melt and disappear with even the faintest brush of the sun. Try to touch one and it disintegrates in your fingers. They are an element of delight you hold in your mind with gratitude. They won’t be held any other way.

I think words are similar. They can’t be held in a physical way, but they can impact us profoundly. When you stumble upon a piece of writing that delights and surprises you, that touches you in a significant way, it’s like rounding a narrow corner and opening to a field of abundance.

When you read an online journal, you have to believe that there is beauty and meaning beneath the links on the webpage. You have to be open to surprise. I invite you to climb the hill and see what’s around the far corner in this issue. You might find a woman freeing herself from a dysfunctional relationship (Anywhere and Everywhere – by Pamela McCarthy), or the challenges that can exist between siblings (Sisters – by Mary Pauer), or the mystery of a foreign land (Mediterranean Dream Mosaic – by Claudia Buckholts), or the landscape of a western state (Idaho I-84b – by Dayle Olson), or the surprise of digital collage (Featured Artist – William Wolak). You might find yourself awed, or touched with a new understanding of something deep and true.

And isn’t that what we’re here for, why we write, why we read? To discover something vital about life? I think it is.

Thanks to all the Issue Thirteen contributors for sharing your words with us and letting us glimpse into your world. And huge thanks to editors Roseann, Kelly, Patricia, and Matthew for your careful study of the submissions, your comments, and the time spent in discussion. I value and appreciate you all.

Blessings,
Sandy