Hello! Welcome to the fifth, wintry, issue of the Dirty Napkin. For most of the editors, this marks their second year of hard work on the magazine. For me, it’s an introduction. Just this past fall, I joined the Dirty Napkin crew as its newest fiction editor. I’ve loved fiction since before I could actually read it. (See my Dirty Napkin bio for a visual of the pre-literate Katie.) At that time, words were still the mysterious code by which adults spoke to each other on the page. Until they let me in on the secret, I improvised. I liked to grab one of my storybooks, herd my stuffed animals into a hasty audience, and, using the pictures as cues, “read” aloud an invented, melo-dramatized version of the life and times of the book’s eponymous caterpillar. My rapt listeners never blinked.

I think I love fiction now for the same reason I did then—the sharing, the telling, the community that grows up around it. (Probably also why I liked ghost stories in college.) That’s why, for me, it’s a true treat to pore over submissions with our associate editor, Tim, steep myself in the worlds they present, and share the very best with you.

I hope you enjoy them—and the rest of the magazine—as much as we did.

Happy reading!
Katie