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Editor’s Note on This Issue

Vol. XXXIV No. 2 – Winter 2021

In the depths of the pandemic, we have had to reimagine much. We have had to consider our habits and behaviors in both close quarters as well as across new mediums. We have had to examine the fabric of our social structures and relationships. We have had to reconstitute the nature of our hopes and dreams such as they might persist in an uncertain future.
Yet, at Witness, we find our responsibilities to be ever the same. We have been delighted to once again choose works that help us to examine and understand issues of identity, works that endeavor to give us courage to confront social issues, works that remind us what it means to full of feeling and fury in the face of tragedy, and works that dare us to imagine a world of what could be, rather than what is.
In this issue, you will read fiction about surreal and endless journeys, about cups of tea that smooth over past regrets, about strange blooms on a lover’s body, about mermaids who defy expectation. You will experience essays that compassionately speak of race and identity across national and international lines. You will encounter poems that were inspired by photography archives published on Instagram, that reach across time and space for emotional echoes, that embody the ambivalence of religion, that confront the inherent racism in the simple terminology of “China Virus.”
We were honored to read these works, for they gave us comfort and pleasure in a time of uncertainty. They let us journey away from our static isolations. We hope they will do the same for you.
Once more, we wish you good health and good reading.
-Robert Ren

 

“A Continual Flight from Wonder,” by Joseph Stern. Winner of the 2021 International Photography Awards. Artist’s note & bio: Albert Einstein said, “The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.” This photo shows the initial ascent. Joseph Stern is a writer and photographer. He is originally from Montreal and now lives in China.
Witness blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to his or her times. Launched in Detroit in 1987, the magazine is best known for showcasing work that defines its historical moment; special issues have focused on political oppression, religion, the natural world, crime, aging, civil rights, love, ethnic America, and exile. The issues “New Nature Writing,” “The Sixties,” “Sports in America,” and “The Best of Witness, 1987 – 2004” eventually appeared as university press anthologies. In 2007, Witness moved to Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The magazine publishes one print issue and one online issue a year, and increasingly seeks out work that contextualizes the American experience by highlighting issues of global concern.

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