Notes from the Editors

“With every day that passes by, dear Sancho, … you lose some foolishness and gain some sense.” – Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter 12

Dear Reader,

Five issues in two years, and we still feel the same excitement and anticipation to release this prose and poetry into the world. When we first began this journal, it seemed like it would take us an eternity to get to this point—but the time has flown by more quickly than we could have ever imagined.

It’s always fascinating to watch each issue flesh out after months of reading submissions. Before Spry, neither of us fully understood the experience of curating an entire journal issue. Having both served as genre editors, we were comfortable picking the best submissions we received, but the process of orchestrating an entire issue is a completely separate beast. It’s always been our mission to publish a balanced issue that comprises a balance of fiction and creative nonfiction, and also flash and poetry. For the past four issues, we’ve been pleased to offer a diverse, yet genre-balanced experience to our readers. And each time, we’ve learned something new; in the words of Miguel de Cervantes, we’ve gained some sense.

That all changed this issue. We’ve dubbed issue #5 the poetry issue, as we have seventeen poems to share with you. As always, we were moved, challenged, and changed by so many of the submissions we read throughout the reading period, but were truly blown away by the poems and prose that we are so pleased to share with you that we share with you this issue as well.

As a celebration of poetry, of writing, and of the dreamers behind the work you’ll find in this issue, our cover design celebrates the four-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote, Part II. Cervantes writes that: “…the truth might be stretched thin but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water,” (Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter 10). It is in the spirit of Cervantes, then, that we present to you the dreams of poets and writers who, whether it be through creative nonfiction or fiction alone, bring you some element of light, of love, of truth.

We hope, as always, that the art and writing you find within these pages is as moving, as troubling, as chaotic, as beautiful, and as timeless as we so strongly feel it is.

Yours in writing,
Erin Ollila and Linsey Jayne
Cofounding Editors