Introduction

A note from the editor

Featuring: Witness Literary Award winners

Fiction (selected by Lesley Nneka Arimah)

First Place: Jane Pek, The Nine-Tailed Fox Explains

Runner Up: John Tait, The Kristian Vang Fan Club

Poetry (selected by Hanif Abdurraqib)

First Place: Sophia Stid, Apophatic Ghazal

Runner Up: Renia White, lump

Fiction

Miriam Cohen, Guns Are Safer for Children Than Laundry Detergent

Lance Olsen, the noise knowledge makes (an excerpt from my red heaven)

Samar Fitzgerald, The Age of Getting By

Mark Budman, The Invisible Man

Eric Severn, Love

Robert Garner McBrearty, Sarge and Hollings

Jameelah Lang, Tree People

Jennifer Sears,What Mennonite Girls Are Good For

Christine Vines, Redacted

Courtney Sender, The Docent

Poetry

Kazim Ali, pulse

Trace DePass, [requiem] for colored boys who have considered jumping off the
Brooklyn Bridge & into an eternal wave of depression when
Mick Jenkins’ “Waters” Mixtape wasn’t enough,

Lauren Camp, Greed; Mean Particles

Adrian Lurssen, News (I); News (II)

Ricardo Hernandez, Feedback; Notes on Seroconversion

Marina Blitshteyn, the future; man painting humans

Gale Marie Thompson, Blueprint; The Definition

Nonfiction

Amy Collini, Magnum

David Mura, Performing Prop 8

Richard Prins, Down and Up in Dar es Salaam

Cover Photo

Angi Tianzhu, Identity