Want to keep reading?

You've reached the end of your complimentary access. Subscribe for as little as $4/month.

Subscribe
Aready a Subscriber ? Sign In

This issue is full of storms—actual storms that strike trees with lightning and shipwreck brothers and cause huge waves to crash onto the deck of a beach house—as well as metaphorical ones:

“I am a thunderstorm” Pauline McAndrew writes in a poem about being mixed race. A number of characters experience internal storms as well: the protagonist in “Imaginary Friend” struggles to help others see what she sees; Nicky’s anger at her cousin Laila reaches a peak in Cousins; and in “Kindergarten,” Avaline describes the fear and anxiety that filled her when she had to start kindergarten in America—without speaking or understanding English.

Storms can be scary, but they are also usually cathartic: all the tension and energy that was building is released in the storm, and afterwards the world—whether external or internal—is calm and peaceful.

I hope you will take the time in the next couple of months to explore storms in your writing and your artwork.

Rainily Yours,