Curating pieces for The Dawn Review was a consistent highlight of my life over the past few months. I have learned so much from working with the team and reading the work of so many unique voices, and I am excited to finally share our inaugural issue. I am especially thankful to all of the editors on our team for making this magazine a reality. I am also so thankful to everyone who shared their voice with us– over three months, we received 820 pieces of poetry, prose, art, and hybrid work. 

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We started this magazine as a way to present work that inspires us, connect with aspiring writers, and support emerging writers and artists. This is why we are so proud that, even amidst college applications and our own writing lives, we were able to provide free, detailed feedback on 189 pieces of work. After dozens of hours of reading, writing, emailing, and designing, we are proud to present the work of 20 writers and artists through our inaugural issue. Some of our contributors have published collections– others are high school students, and others still have never been previously published. Regardless, each of the pieces in our issue struck us with its poignancy, its honesty, and its ability to make us see familiar surroundings in a new light. 

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In this issue, we champion the myriad ways that people create themselves from their liminal spaces. In Florianne Che’s “i do not know when objects started screaming,” we see how nature seeps into the “concrete pores” of a fragmented existence. Similarly, we celebrate how Munira Alimire’s protagonist in “The Unfinished Pilot” escapes a world dictated by cruel patterns to live in a world of real contact. We watch as birds nip at Irina Novikova’s characters, serving alternately as vessels of longing and a plea for peace. And in Ben Covey’s “Asleep at the Wheel,” we follow the speaker on a path that glints, wavers, and burns. 

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Regardless of genre, each piece in this issue reaches to the others, just as we reach to one another in a world where so much is transitory, impure, and conditional. Above all, the pieces in this issue are a reminder of the things things we can latch on to, even when we never truly hold them. I am so proud to release our inaugural issue, and I hope it brings you inspiration and solace in equal measure. There is so much more yet to come!

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Sincerely,
Ziyi