Somehow, it is Spring again and the current Change Seven team has been doing this together for almost two years now. It’s hard to believe! Recently, we were all attending the Appalachian Studies Association Conference in Morgantown, West Virginia. We arranged to meet for dinner and it was the first time we’d all been together as the Change Seven team. In many different iterations, we’ve been together for a variety of reasons: undergraduate school, graduate school, writer’s workshops and retreats, conferences, etc., but this time we were meeting because of this magazine. Because we are all old friends and also because we do this work together all year long, it felt like a homecoming. After two years of isolation and virtual events, it was genuinely heartwarming and exciting to be with friends again, in person.
This issue has been a delight to collect and assemble. The artwork this time is some of the very best we’ve ever received and I was incredibly excited to see all of it. In fact, this issue contains beautiful work from such an amazing variety of artists. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we’ve enjoyed assembling it. We also hope this new season gives you the chance to see and spend time with the people you enjoy most…just like we finally got to do!
Melissa Minsker
Change Seven Magazine 