Dear reader,

In many ways, summer is the ultimate off season. School isn’t in session, friends and family leave town for intermittent travel, and even the most rigid work schedules become more flexible in the face of a sunny afternoon. At Off Season, our staff was busy with all the regular summer activities, along with job interviews, wedding planning, hosting weekly Wednesday write-ins, and, of course, curating and designing this issue for you.

This was the first issue where our genre editors took the lead from beginning to end of the process: reading and sorting submissions, selecting a shortlist, and ultimately choosing and editing the final pieces for the issue. I’m incredibly grateful for the time and effort Bodie Fox, Victoria Reynolds, and Taylor Schaefer dedicated to the project and to their contributors. I know from personal experience that they are generous, thoughtful readers who give their all as editors and friends. There’s nothing more special than getting to create art with people you care about, and what an honor that I get to do it with these specific people.

Issue 003 features five poems, including work from Bleah Patterson, Genevieve Hartman, Annelise Schoups, Adi Smith, and Edward Lisovicz. We also have two pieces of prose: a short story, “The Roach,” from Faria Basher, and an essay, “A Guide to the Night Sky,” by Oleksandra Budna. Each of these writers approaches their art in ways that felt electric for our readers and editors. I hope you’ll read each piece closely and encounter the same spark we did.

Our fantastic cover art was provided by designer and illustrator Hanna Carter, who was introduced to us by Art Director Nicole Brate. Nicole interviewed Hanna about illustration, freelancing, and her future dream projects. You can read that interview here.

As always, I owe my gratitude to our Web Developer, Thomas Eckert, for creating a gorgeous website with which to showcase our contributors, and to Susan Muth, my partner in all things Off Season. We launched our very first call for submissions a little over a year ago, and we’re still gaining momentum. There’s only so much two people can do, so having our staff fill out over the last year has been such a gift and means we can do a lot more with Off Season as a journal and as a community. Keep an eye on our Instagram and our website to learn more as we continue to grow.

Thank you for being here. We’re just getting started, and we hope you’ll come along with us.

Happy reading,

Sophia