Dear friends and readers, 

As we close out on this spring semester, I find myself once again behind my computer, attempting to do right by the challenge and privilege of presenting this volume of Glass Mountain to you. After all, this is the result of countless painstaking hours our editors and staff put into this issue, with reading, slush meetings, debates, and more reading. Our contributors understand this struggle — however many hours we spent compiling this volume, they spent countless more fashioning ideas into words into art. 

And now here we are. We’re sending it all out into the world, carefully crafted. The pieces in here deserve to be honored. Cherished. 

As a writer, I think a lot about not knowing what to say. That might be the thing that weighs most heavily on my mind these days. Ironic, right? But if I linger on it too long, I’ll run myself into the ground with this idea of needing the perfect statement, the perfect story. Something that will spill out of me in an embryonic state of perfection that I can present to the world and say, Yeah. This is it.

I like to think I’m in the midst of my journey of understanding this is an impossible feat. But honestly? I’m closer to the start than I’d like to admit.

Death, taxes, and change. As a person, as a writer, I’m constantly evolving. Whether it be nearly inconsequential or incredibly transformative, change is happening every second to all of us. Who we are tomorrow can’t be who we are today. Who we are in five years won’t be the same as who we are now. 

That’s the wonderful thing about a magazine like Glass Mountain. When we’re long gone, these pieces will still be blipping across the internet, giving little glimpses into who we were when writing or reading them. The best gift I can offer in this moment is this snapshot of now. 

And now, after an entirely too long note from me, already proving myself wrong, I encourage you to view these pieces with the perspective of peeking into someone else’s creative process. Who knows, maybe one will spark that This is it. moment for you.