During dark times, we must celebrate the light. We must cheer that much harder for births and birthdays, for promotions and retirements. In the summer we must exalt the longer days, even if each one brings another day of hardship, sacrifice, and struggle. We must wave each small, happy moment like a child waves a sparkler at the looming shadows in the night.
This summer at 805, we celebrate the second anniversary of our first issue, which contained works by 16 debut and emerging authors, poets, and artists. When we sent this issue into the world, we were nervous, and we were excited, but mostly we were awed by the creativity of our contributors and the support of our community. Since then we’ve published ten more issues featuring over 125 more talented people, many who made their debut appearance in the literary and art world by gracing our pages. In this issue, our characters wrestle with the cold darkness of death and grief, abuse and sickness, yet they still find bright sparks of warmth from within themselves. And as we read about these struggles, we editors and readers set off bottle rockets and roman candles for 16 more debut and emerging creators.