When we chose the theme Hope, it was not because we believed things were suddenly getting better. It was not optimism, nor wishful thinking. Hope, at least for us, has become less a feeling than a practice – a form of exhausted persistence. The pieces in this issue resist easy comfort. They are anxious, sharp, grieving, conflicted. Yet each reflects hope not as optimism or reassurance, but as a practice of continuing. Perhaps this, too, is a form of hope. The act of writing. The act of reading. The possibility of sharing moments of humanity with people we may never meet, and finding ourselves a little less alone in the process.