A Word from the Editor

Readers,

I don’t know much about oceanography, but I will say that I’ve always enjoyed that world—the colors, shapes, textures, different species, and the quiet despite all the activity. I especially appreciate how even the largest sea animal appears weightless.

In a book I wrote and illustrated in first or second grade, I stated that I wanted to be a marine biologist. One of the illustrations was a stick figure with what appears to be an oxygen tank and snorkeling gear. Growing up, I’d float around in the pool for hours, luxuriating in buoyancy. My happy places in my twenties were the Riverhead Aquarium, a docking area in Cold Spring Harbor, and driving the Robert Moses Causeway that looks out over the water. For my thirtieth birthday, I had the opportunity to snorkel in Curaçao, a life changing experience. I could have spent all day in the crystal-clear waters of the Caribbean Sea.

There’s magic in large bodies of water: how the waves can be crashing on the surface, but below them everything’s calm.

Editing issue 28, I felt something similar to the way I feel near water: I dove into my own private world. The world above the surface kept roaring, of course. The notifications, deadlines, the constant noise was always there. But inside the work, inside these poems and stories and artwork, there was a quiet that felt entirely mine. A place where I could breathe differently.

Each piece in this issue, despite their differences, held me in the same, calm bubble. Some encircle grief. Others shimmer with wonder. Some descend into darkness and return carrying something luminous. Together, they remind me that art lives the way water lives: flowing, essential, and always capable of surprising us.

I hope, as you move through these pages, you feel a bit of that private world too. I hope something here invites you to slip beneath the surface noise, to drift, to explore, to feel momentarily weightless.

Thank you for diving in with us.

Jess