Dear Reader:

It is January, a time of dense air; we can see our breath in front of our faces. We move through space and mark our presence: footprints in snow, fog on glass. The works in this issue explore the traces left by our lives. Some of these are physical, like Olga Rukovets’ matryoshka doll carved from lime wood in “Husking,” or the dying farmhouse in Dan Leamen’s “Limoncello.” Some are sensed by strangers; in “She Was a Beautiful Person,” Daniel Parks meets a woman whose story unwittingly dances close to his own, while Jennifer Lee's detective in “Back River Neck” is reminded by a killer of his own lost youth. And sometimes, in the roar of a winter beach or a mating song, or in the refusal of old clichés, we find a place without history, without echoes of us, and discover something unexpected.

We hope you enjoy these discoveries as much as we have.

Ayelet Amittay
Co-Editor
Brink