I heard my colleague and students laughing together down the hall just now and, because I like them very much, I wandered down to find out what was so funny. It wasn’t exactly humor that I found, but just delight in being together, here at just-past-mid-term, with all its attendant chaos of brain drain and deadlines, a few days before we let go of the fiction that is Daylight Savings Time. Winter is coming, as they say, and laughter and light will become precious resources around here---and maybe where you are, too.

Anyway, I walked into Sarah’s office and it was clear I was interrupting some kind of meeting, so I said, Oh, sorry! But she said, Join us! And here are some chocolate-covered crackers to eat! They’re just like the things you make with the Saltines…

You make these? asked my student. Does that mean we get to have some?

I do make them, and they are ridiculously easy. So easy, really, that I’m a little shy to claim them as any kind of specialty. Still, my kids ask for them every Christmas, and I guess my colleagues connect them to me as well. I have no problem with being connected with feeding people or with sweetness, so this works out just fine.

There is a sweetness to putting out a new issue of The Fourth River every semester, too, though I would not call it easy. It’s a serious project that our students in the MFA program take seriously. They read your work and write about it so they can turn around and talk about it. They are tasked with making hard decisions that they know will disappoint some while lifting up others. Nothing easy or sweet in that. We talk about and learn about the concept of “community” during the semester. We refer to our “cousin journals.” I want them to feel these connections deeply and gratefully. We are so fortunate to be trusted with all the work that comes to us at The Fourth River. So fortunate for the community your work creates and sustains.

This is the sweet part. The chocolate covered toffee cracker of the literary world, why not? Delicious, addictive, and, if not easy, then at least easily shareable.

Thanks to everyone who made this issue. Thanks to everyone who reads it.

Please, share it with the people you like.

Sheila Squillante
Editor-in-Chief