Hello readers,
Our Fall/Winter issue is now live! It has been a privilege to be just one small circuit in the team that helped put it all together. Our entire editing and reading staff took great care to bring you this issue, and I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed publishing it. This issue saw one of our largest submission pools yet, and every selected piece fought hard to be noticed by our team of editors and readers. These were pieces that vibrated with energy, pieces that caused us to be acutely aware of our own insides, pieces that made us feel the energy hanging between words and between people. This also features an unprecedented number of creative nonfiction pieces and marks our shift to separating our prose team into separate fiction and nonfiction editors. I am so delighted to see our growth, and I’m glad that TIMBER can serve as a home for work of so many genres.
Even after working on TIMBER for two years, first as Social Media Coordinator and then as Assistant Managing Editor, I was moderately to severely terrified of taking over as managing editor. TIMBER is and always has been an amazing team effort, and it was my goal as Managing Editor to support that team completely in their difficult tasks. Brighter and brighter lights are being shone on the shitty things in the world, and I believe more and more that art has a great ability to shine that light. Beyond that illumination, art can incite and invite change. Running a literary magazine is a deeply human project, and I feel closer to every single staff member and contributor.
Gratitude is on my mind this year, and I think a proper letter from the editor should focus on that gratitude. I would like to offer my thanks to the entire TIMBER team, editors and readers alike. Thanks to Lukas Devries for getting the words where they need to be on the website. Thanks to our genre editors, Mike Ranellone, Bree Pye, Reed Underwood, and Elana Friedland. Thanks to Mackenzie Suess and Jen London, our new copywriting team. To Stephen Mruzik, whose wit and personality keep our social media vibrant. To Phuong Vuong, who ensures we have review and interview content to publish in between full issues. And, of course, thanks to Rachel Cruea, my Assistant Managing editor, who has kept me grounded throughout it all.
Thank you to everyone who took a chance and submitted your work or answered our interview questions. Sharing art is a personal risk-taking, and I appreciate you taking that gamble with us.
I am thankful, also, to my two amazing predecessors, Rushi Vyas (2017-2018) and Sarah Thompson (2016-2017), who made me see what this journal was truly capable of and helped pave the way for TIMBER’s bright future.
Finally, thank you so much for reading. Your continued support keeps us strong, and I look forward your accompaniment on the rest of TIMBER’s journey. Enjoy!
With kindness,
Chris Becker
Managing Editor