OK, friends. With the new year about to start I’m setting my reading goals now. Said goals will be based on last year’s reading. Not quantitatively, though. I’m not going to share my number, unless you really pester me and we’ve eaten a delicious meal at Salt City Market. Then maybe.

I can say this, I completely pad my numbers with small tomes. (There’s an abridged Sherlock Homes that fits in my pocket and elementary, my dears Watson, but I counted it toward my total.) However, I believe that my overall sum balances out, since the final three volumes of Proust’s epic ultimately made me their (cough, cough) Prisoner this year. Is that a humble brag… or just a brag brag? Either way, I should really learn how to bake madeleines and take them to fancy parties.

If you happen to be at a fancy party and are reading this on a tiny handheld screen that fits in your pocket, sure, you might be a skosh antisocial (anti-skoshal?) or you might just be escaping someone’s story about those Canadians that time, or you might be me (though in all truth, I’m on a honking laptop and guessed your WIFI password). (FYI: It was on the router!)

In this Winter Issue, Gia Masih lights up our darkness across generations of the living and the eternal as in “My Daughter’s Birthday.” Leah Browning’s “Hairpins” explore the fragility of keeping the present present and close. “Hangers” by Daniel Schall investigates what it means to inherit as an exploration of time and connection. Sudha Balagopal reminds us that “It’s Not About the Things” but still it’s what they represent, isn’t it?

The desperation of our attempts at communication come through despite regional differences in Kathleen Hellen’s “superman in pink.” If communication with others is a challenge, what about investigating our own idiopathic selves? “Elf-shot” by Nathan Lachenmeyer begins that conversation.

I am interested in this intersection of communication and thing-ness. The qualities of the stories held inside the physical book. Some I returned to the library. Many I’ve crammed into sagging bookshelves.

William Carlos Williams did remind us that there are  “no ideas but in things.” Not only that but he asks us to “Say it.” I’m looking forward to communicating more in the new year and to celebrating the small things, while letting go of some of the big things. Finding specificity in the things might be the key. One of my best editors said, “Don’t write thing. Say what it is!”

Now I’m off to find a metaphor that fits existential dread. Join me – but let’s grab a bite first. We can talk about the books and stories we’ve read this year! We can remind ourselves to keep going!

Happy New Year!

JR Walsh
Online Editor
The Citron Review