Dear Readers,

We are very proud to present to you Mason’s Road’s 8^th issue. Between the hard work of our staff and the talent of our contributors, we have brought together thirteen pieces that take the theme of transformation and bring it into a new light. And with a theme as old as humanity itself, this is a triumph that took dedication, intelligence, and a commitment to craft. I applaud each and every person who has made this issue possible, and give my most sincere and humble thank you for your inestimable work.

I have personally worked on Mason’s Road for two years now: first as a reader, then for a year as the Poetry Editor, and lastly, on this issue, as Editor in Chief. During my recent graduation from Fairfield University’s MFA program, I looked around at my fellow graduates and realized I saw not the unsure students I had met two years previously, but rather a group of strong, confident writers and editors and teachers. Without me seeing it clearly, we had all transformed. But our transformation wasn’t enacted by moving a tassel from one side of our cap to the other. Rather, it was gradual and unnoticed and constant. The first sentence of this paragraph covers two years, but a million transformations. Not all of our transformations have ceremonies to mark them, but they happen, daily, sometimes without us noticing them.

We, as writers, as readers, are always transforming. We are taking on new guises when we delve into new perspectives as we create or read the creations of others, but that is only mirroring what we undergo in our everyday lives. Life is in constant flux, and we move with that current, no matter how hard we sometimes resist it. I will be sad to leave Mason’s Road, but always grateful for the transformations it has wrought in me, the transformations I have seen it perform on my fellow editors and in our contributors. We are a literary community, and that means we, more than others, are capable of moving forward: on to the next chapter or line or word, because, my god, we just have to know what comes next.

As in Ranier Maria Rilke wrote in his “Sonnets to Orpheus”:

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

Come along, and embrace transformation with us.

Happy Reading,

 

Devon Bohm

Editor in Chief