Letter From the Editors: Issue 45

March 2021

Dear Readers,

We have very few words left to make sense of the months behind us. Salt Hill 45, a thicker issue than most with a year’s worth of work packed in, will arrive in a world tipped upside-down. It feels nearly futile to keep publishing a literary journal. But only nearly – because as writers and artists ourselves, we know that opportunities to share our work give us the energy to keep creating, even in a year like 2020.

The writers and artists of Issue 45 juggle trees and pheasants and memory, girlhood and caterpillars, television and America and perhaps more stars than is typical. It’s the same mix of timeless and timely we’ve always tended to compile, but we can’t help but notice how many of the pieces in this issue focus on endings, on destruction, on separation and distance.

Perhaps, some of our writers suggest, we must give into the absurdity we’re living through. Olivia Muenz imagines “discount health insurance which sounds good until I read the sneaky little clause about donating my brain to amazon”, while Margie Sarsfield’s investigation of a high school relationship can only be accomplished with the satirical distance of a scientific report and Alexsandra Byrska’s attempt to save threatened animals involves “building an ark on the edge of the bed”.

In the midst of these alternative approaches to a world in chaos, there are six whole poems about praying. Is six too many? Maybe not this year. Of course, a prayer is a different thing to each of us. In the first poem of the issue, Debora Kuan instructs her titular moon goddess to “pray as if you know how.” And Sean Cho A. closes the issue by asking, “Is there a prayer for that?”

It seems right to open with a charade and to end with a question. If we have learnt one lesson in past year, it is that we do not have any answers. Yet we’re presented with the gift of poets, fiction writers, essayists, photographers and painters whose work feels more precious now than ever. We hope it feels like a gift to you, too.

Stay safe – we’re so grateful to have you.

— Sara Potocsny and Sophie van Waardenberg