Dear Friends and Lovers of Giving Room Mag,
Winter has officially arrived, and so has Issue 5.
I have been living in New York all my life, and somehow, the shift of seasons still perplexes me. The summer heat seems to be vacuumed into some temporary holding place, slowly and then all at once gone, until the flowers are ready to grow again. The world turns frosty, one fallen leaf at a time, until our exhaling breaths become visible ghosts, and snow falls from the sky. My body feels especially vivid in these colder months; I find myself constantly saying—God, I’m freezing; I’m so cold—and I become deeply aware of the heat I am able to produce with all of my bones and blood and flesh. It’s fair to say this sounds rather graphic, to focus on the elements of myself that keep me alive, but this is what winter forces us to face—the way life leaves.
I believe this is why winter can seem inherently devastating. The days are shorter; the sun has retreated by 4 PM. The streets turn silent, more hollow. The glowing lamp posts seem lonelier. The sound of a coyote screaming in the cold while we try to sleep under our warm blankets feels visceral. We ache for warmth, scampering from one warm building to the next to escape the frigid whip of the wind. What I find amongst these winter scenes is how I simultaneously seem more alive. The ice makes everything shimmer. The snowy trees look like something out of a magnificent film. I know I’ve been out walking in the woods when the land is covered in snow, and I’ve said—I wish I could take a photograph with my eyes. This is one way we express our gratitude and desire for how the world morphs and presents something uncannily beautiful; we think—this is art—which is why it feels so particularly perfect for presenting a new issue to you all at this very moment.
I feel the images and feelings shared between these stellar pieces of work have captured the pure essence of winter I have described above. Ordinary moments become extraordinary because of the immediate juxtaposition between life and death—the way we learn something horrific while we wait for the train to pass before we can drive over the tracks and carry on with our day in Zary Fekete’s “Railroad Crossing,” or the way we return to a grave surrounded by sunflowers and wonder if the person in the “earth below” is “yours” or “mine” in “The Roadside Grave” by Jessica Mazur. I’m confident there will be many of you from all over who are not currently experiencing winter in the same physical way I am, living in the Northeast, but this is to say that winter is also a mindset, an atmosphere, a feeling. Everyone can partake in the perplexity of the way life changes. We all have because we are alive. That is the way of living. And what a magnificent thing it is to be and share our language, emotion, and experiences through art. I am greatly elated by the thought and knowing that you all will have the chance to find some resemblance and feeling in this incredible and diverse issue.
I want to take the opportunity to thank the Giving Room Mag team. Their love and commitment to fostering an empathetic and safe space within the literary world, where we can come together and conversate and accept each other as we are, fills me with the utmost joy. Thank you to Emily Goldsmith, Kelly Stohr, and Carla Wilson for outstanding work as inclusionary and, overall, simply fabulous editors. Thank you to our writers and artists for allowing us to engage with their amazing work. Thank you to our community, who has continuously cheered us on from the start, and thank you to anyone who has joined us at any point along the journey. As we like to say, we imagine Giving Room Mag as a big, cozy home with enough room for everyone and more. So, thank you for taking up a room in this wonderful home of ours and yours—you are so incredibly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Cerissa DiValentino
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
I have been living in New York all my life, and somehow, the shift of seasons still perplexes me. The summer heat seems to be vacuumed into some temporary holding place, slowly and then all at once gone, until the flowers are ready to grow again. The world turns frosty, one fallen leaf at a time, until our exhaling breaths become visible ghosts, and snow falls from the sky. My body feels especially vivid in these colder months; I find myself constantly saying—God, I’m freezing; I’m so cold—and I become deeply aware of the heat I am able to produce with all of my bones and blood and flesh. It’s fair to say this sounds rather graphic, to focus on the elements of myself that keep me alive, but this is what winter forces us to face—the way life leaves.
I believe this is why winter can seem inherently devastating. The days are shorter; the sun has retreated by 4 PM. The streets turn silent, more hollow. The glowing lamp posts seem lonelier. The sound of a coyote screaming in the cold while we try to sleep under our warm blankets feels visceral. We ache for warmth, scampering from one warm building to the next to escape the frigid whip of the wind. What I find amongst these winter scenes is how I simultaneously seem more alive. The ice makes everything shimmer. The snowy trees look like something out of a magnificent film. I know I’ve been out walking in the woods when the land is covered in snow, and I’ve said—I wish I could take a photograph with my eyes. This is one way we express our gratitude and desire for how the world morphs and presents something uncannily beautiful; we think—this is art—which is why it feels so particularly perfect for presenting a new issue to you all at this very moment.
I feel the images and feelings shared between these stellar pieces of work have captured the pure essence of winter I have described above. Ordinary moments become extraordinary because of the immediate juxtaposition between life and death—the way we learn something horrific while we wait for the train to pass before we can drive over the tracks and carry on with our day in Zary Fekete’s “Railroad Crossing,” or the way we return to a grave surrounded by sunflowers and wonder if the person in the “earth below” is “yours” or “mine” in “The Roadside Grave” by Jessica Mazur. I’m confident there will be many of you from all over who are not currently experiencing winter in the same physical way I am, living in the Northeast, but this is to say that winter is also a mindset, an atmosphere, a feeling. Everyone can partake in the perplexity of the way life changes. We all have because we are alive. That is the way of living. And what a magnificent thing it is to be and share our language, emotion, and experiences through art. I am greatly elated by the thought and knowing that you all will have the chance to find some resemblance and feeling in this incredible and diverse issue.
I want to take the opportunity to thank the Giving Room Mag team. Their love and commitment to fostering an empathetic and safe space within the literary world, where we can come together and conversate and accept each other as we are, fills me with the utmost joy. Thank you to Emily Goldsmith, Kelly Stohr, and Carla Wilson for outstanding work as inclusionary and, overall, simply fabulous editors. Thank you to our writers and artists for allowing us to engage with their amazing work. Thank you to our community, who has continuously cheered us on from the start, and thank you to anyone who has joined us at any point along the journey. As we like to say, we imagine Giving Room Mag as a big, cozy home with enough room for everyone and more. So, thank you for taking up a room in this wonderful home of ours and yours—you are so incredibly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Cerissa DiValentino
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
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POETRY |
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VISUAL ART |
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