Editor’s Note:

“We live to collect experiences, not things.” Whenever I hear that familiar saying, I’m reminded of the preciousness and elusiveness of the present moment, but at the same time, I’m humbled and frustrated by it. Time continues to pass no matter who is chasing it. What we are really collecting is memory, and the act of remembering is our attempt at breaking the boundary of time. Based on the past, memory writes and rewrites our present and the future.

The cover art we feature is a painting by the late artist Rita Deanin Abbey called “Memory,” selected for this issue. Even though the writings we have curated are not themed, collectively through echos, the thread of memory has emerged to connect the pieces. Among the many pieces we share and celebrate here, you will find a constellation of work that speaks to personal wrestlings and re-negotiations of belonging and displacement, communication and misunderstanding, hurt and hope, coming-of-age and aging, and more. In addition, we bring to you some of the finalists from our last annual contest, the 2023 Witness Literary Awards.

In this issue, we also have two special sections, a section of dedication letters and an art section, because of its unique timing. Two important figures of the magazine, Peter Stine, the founding editor of Witness, and Carol Harter, the founder and former Executive Director of Black Mountain Institute, passed away during the production of this issue. It is impossible to compress Stine’s and Harter’s incredible work over the years in two short letters, but by including those letters, we hope to pay respect to their foundational and essential role and all the writers, editors, and readers they had touched. Meanwhile, this online issue also marks the first time we’re collaborating with an outside venue, Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum in Las Vegas, which opened in 2022, one year after the artist’s death. The exceptionally wide range of time periods, mediums and forms of Rita’s legacy is proof of the splendid life of a prolific and passionate artist. In a sense, this issue is a threshold: step through, you will find many memories of others to make you think and feel; and when you return, we hope the memory of this issue will give you inspiration, strength, and light as you keep going to create memories of your own.

– Xueyi Zhou