Welcome to the 17th Issue of Waccamaw,
It was a fall when rivers got rowdy, flooded us harder than ocean. What was supposed to happen is not what happened.
The coast after our hurricane was fine. It was inland that got it, the heart of the place twisted and soaked, a skeleton canopy of trees arching closed roads.
Then there is this other storm.
These fleshy bodies of ours. Pitched against one another in illusion. We are really beside of course. It is our only position. Clear if you see from the sky. Literature knows this. Knows the complexity of this. Invites you in. We invite you in too. All of you.
These stories and poems were picked from before, from out of that other land in that other time of moons, super and super duper and plain moons, wrists and plants and silence. The wolfblips we were. Believing what we wanted to believe was so adorable. Until it wasn’t.
There is no comfort in confronting what actually is. The truth is an old hag in a house of bones. Few ever find her beauty because her tests are harsh. But here we find hope in the chance. We find hope in each other and how we huddled on the floor over these pages listening for their sounds and were brought together in a kind of melody. We find hope that in the many lives these words tangle with you may catch a glimpse of the hearth.
We find hope in being more than one thing.
We welcome you to be both with us. More. Actual.
Time is just another relationship. Bring it in close.
With Love,
The Waccamaw Editors