As children we learned that air could be felt on our skin, but when we lay in bed at night and tried to see it, we realized it was invisible. As we grow up, we learn there are things which become visible only in their echo, things that split shapes in our lives. Sometimes they cannot be explained or given a name. They can be proved only in their ability to be felt, in their ability to make a noise which is brought back from memory. Sometimes we cannot imagine how they came to be until they are gone. Sometimes, we live in the presence of the inexplicable. 

We are moved by the stories in this issue because they explore the minutes, hours, and years which are spent reaching for the things we can’t always find—for the sea as it’s brought forth by a child making waves in their cereal bowl, for the music that played at our parent’s wedding, for the in-between of dreams. These are the things which resonate but cannot always be found, the things which complicate our storytelling. 

The authors in this issue have found a way to speak to the unfamiliar, to the unplaceable. They’ve found a way to speak of the moments to which time doesn’t provide clarity. Our hope is that, as these stories unfold, you will consider them indomitable. You will consider them resolute. You will consider them unending.  

With warmth, 

Hannah Newman & Jesse Ewing-Frable
Sweet Tree Review