Editor’s Note

Around here, we’ve been feeling the weight of winter, the heavy press of snow gathering on our many surfaces; flakes push together like bodies in a crowd. That closeness is what I find myself craving. The tectonic pressure of it, how the compaction forms something new.

This issue is a diamond, a crush of big things packed into small spaces. Go ahead, grip onto these pieces, a sturdy railing alongside icy steps. Your hands, an unexpected tightening, the world closing in: squeezed by a camera’s lens, a tunnel’s mouth, the shrinking borders of your small-town world. Maybe you’ll feel the untamed thrum of a new crush swelling against bare skin. Perhaps, within these stories, you’ll feel the heft of time and the counter pressure of your chosen family drawn close. It is, all of it, a condensing: footprints in the snow, becoming something new. Hold this issue tight, let it in and be transformed with an embrace.

Table of Contents

Title	Genre	Writer
Just Chill Out, Okay	Flash Fiction	Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Naked Protest	Flash Fiction	Joanna Theiss
The Love That We Have Been	Poetry	Jane Hahn
When You Share a Small Town	Poetry	Devon Neal
Easter Sunday	Flash Fiction	Lilia Anderson
Mini Mashup	Interactive	Vast Editors