The act of writing is a good example of "common magic." It is an ordinary enough act, to sit down at the keyboard or to pick up a pen and make marks on a white page. But it is an extraordinary act, too. Writers of poetry and fiction and the readers who read their work participate in a kind of alchemical joint venture where both agree to inhabit the world that is ordinarily hidden.

The winning fiction entries in this issue all involve a moment where the familiar is seen as strange and in some way miraculous. Each of these writers, as the contest judges noted, took risks, with language, with emotional revelation and with voice

Next week I am moving away, but tonight / we are two paper cranes / folded into a wooden swing

Things We Lost , by Laura Cok