The Long River Review is always moving. Each year, its creative team is assembled anew, its website is redesigned, and a fresh mission statement guides the selection process. The meetings are dynamic, with pockets of panelists discussing submissions, social media team members hovering in front of a screen as they decide on an “aesthetic,” and editors pacing like clerks in a clock shop, making adjustments to ensure all is working in time. This year, our work was conducted remotely, and our panelist pockets turned into breakout rooms and bracketed screens. This did not stop us from feeling the exciting connection of a journal’s team convening, however, because in the midst of all these changes that occur year-to-year, there is always one constant: the desire to experience and share art.

This year, we were guided by the concept of “movement.” a term that is both timely and one that invites myriad connotations. There are social movements, musical movements, the movements of an observing eye as it watches a heron tread gingerly through a stream. As we can now all attest, there is also the lack of movement. With theaters closed, museums operating at reduced capacities, and coffee shops serving take-out only, we decided to embark on the somewhat ironic quest of creating a journal inspired by motion in a time when a global pandemic has forced us to be still.

For us, as editors facing long reading lists and short time frames, the most moving pieces were the ones that gave us pause. These were the poems and narratives that engaged us in conversation long after we read them, and kept moving in our emotions later when we got coffee, drove to work, and sat down to deliberate our shortlists. As you read this year’s volume, I hope you will find pieces that not only speak to you, but ask you to respond. Writing and visual art that merits publication refuses to be confined by its covers and binding; like the Long River Review, it is always moving.