Fall 2025 marks our 22nd issue since launch­ing in Fall 2013. 

In Fall 2013, the US gov­ern­ment shut down for over two weeks due to dis­agree­ments over the Afford­able Care Act, New Jer­sey became the four­teenth state to legal­ize same-sex mar­riage, and in a few short months Bey­on­cé would release her sur­prise album which bore her name. 

I was a mid­dling high school junior fail­ing alge­bra (pre-alge­bra?), and googling “best ways to rewrite Spar­kNotes” for Eng­lish class. It would be five more years until I stum­bled Kaveh Akbar’s poem “I try not to think of God as a debt to luck, but for years I con­sumed noth­ing / that did not harm me / and still I lived, wit­less // as a bird fly­ing over state lines.” Lines that felt like they were speak­ing about me, to me, and for me like a mir­ror demand­ing change. 

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Since I took over as EIC of The Account in Fall 2022, some­times there have been “Notes From the Edi­tor’s Lap­top” and some­times there haven’t. Some­times I’ve found new ways to say Thank you, and oth­er times the moun­tain of excus­es—Too many papers to grade, No one reads that part any­way, The end note just takes away from our con­trib­u­tors’ win—the battle. 

I throw in the tow­el and admit there are no new ways to thank you, read­er; no new ways to say thank you, writer, for say­ing no to the din­ner par­ties and min­ing the space between won­der and audi­ence. I’ve already apol­o­gized too many times to our won­der­ful edi­tors for the ram­bling emails and for all the things I thought I men­tioned once or twice but prob­a­bly didn’t.

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This fall I moved to a new town for the third year in a row: I packed up Can­no­li’s cat tree and water foun­tain and bought new din­ner plates. It’s too hot here, and every­one I love is too far away. At night roach­es fill my sink like it’s a shrine, and out­side there are spi­ders the size of my palm that Can­no­li mis­takes for mice.

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The sec­ond task of a good edi­tor’s note, after all the thank yous, is to try to say your Why lit­er­a­ture?  What can lit­er­a­ture do? 

In 2023 I said, “(Lit­er­a­ture) offers the read­er a chance to step into the writer’s mind-space while they say Hi. Hel­lo. Wel­come. This is what’s been on my mind.” 

And I still think this is prob­a­bly most­ly true.

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For months every­thing on my time­line is scary. Smog blows up from the city: Can­no­li chas­es a com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed rat on the TV, and in a while I’ll copy-paste Sor­ry to pester but in a bunch of replies. 

 

Tomor­row, I’ll end class the same way 

I have for the last six years: by recit­ing a poem.

 

I don’t know which one it’ll be yet, 

but I know it will be exact­ly what we need.

I hope you will find, are find­ing, have found 

exact­ly what you need in these works. 

 

I hope through the dull numb­ing light of the blue screen 

you silent­ly think Hey I feel that too.

*

Till Spring, 


Sean Cho A 
EIC 

As has become cus­tom­ary I would like to use this space to note my grat­i­tude and praise for The Account staff who all work on a vol­un­teer basis.

 

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A thank you to our edi­tors Lau­ren Brazeal Garza, Lyn­d­sey Ellis, Rachele Salvi­ni, and Christi­na Stod­dard. Their lead­er­ship, and thought­ful atten­tion to each and every sub­mis­sion, and mind­ful eye in craft­ing our genre sec­tions is the foun­da­tion­al core that dri­ves our mis­sion at The Account.

A spe­cial thank you to Lau­ren for cham­pi­oning our new inter­views sec­tion: such a won­der­ful addi­tion to The Account — look­ing for­ward to future editions. 

Addi­tion­al grat­i­tude to Christi­na who han­dled much of the logis­tics for this issue, and once again offered invalu­able guid­ance to myself and the pub­li­ca­tion at large. Thank you Christi­na, The Account sim­ply could not exist with­out you. 

For more infor­ma­tion on our edi­tors see below

 

Lau­ren Brazeal Garza, Inter­views and Reviews Editor 

Lyn­d­sey Ellis, Fic­tion Editor

Rachele Salvi­ni, Non­fic­tion Editor 

Christi­na Stod­dard, Poet­ry Edi­tor, Man­ag­ing Editor 

 

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Praise, Grat­i­tude, and, Joy to our new assis­tant edi­tors Camille U. Adams, L. A. John­son, and Megha Nayar. Their impor­tant and mind­ful con­tri­bu­tions helped shape their respec­tive sec­tions.

Thank you for your time. It’s been won­der­ful hav­ing you as part of our com­mu­ni­ty.

For more infor­ma­tion on our assis­tant edi­tors see below

 

Camille U. Adams, Assis­tant CNF Editor 

A. John­son, Assis­tant Poet­ry Editor 

Megha Nayar, Assis­tant Fic­tion Edi­tor 

 

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As always thank you to our Found­ing / Con­sult­ing Edi­tor Tyler Mills. Her sup­port allows The Account to stay acces­si­ble to our read­ers, sub­mit­ters, and the lit­er­ary world at large. I will for­ev­er be grate­ful to Tyler for trust­ing me with this space. 

 

For more on Tyler Mills, Found­ing / Con­sult­ing Editor

 

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And once again, thank You Read­er.

I think the act of read­ing and writ­ing is innate­ly pri­vate, and immense­ly personal. 

I think at its best lit­er­a­ture can lan­guage the un-lan­guagable. I think lit­er­a­ture at its core has the abil­i­ty to change the read­er and writer alike. 

I know at its core The Account offers a space for the read­er and writer to sit down togeth­er in silent con­ver­sa­tion as they scroll through the pages.

That’s what excites me most about The Account: each con­tri­bu­tion offers the read­er a chance to step into the writer’s mind-space while they say Hi. Hel­lo. Wel­come. This is what’s been on my mind. 

 

*

 

With Joy, Till Next Year,


Sean Cho A. 

EIC 

The Account

For addi­tion­al work by the tal­ent­ed con­trib­u­tors of the Fall 2022 issue of The Account, please see the links below 

More from the Contributors

Juwon Lee 

Ben Brig­gs 

Brodie Gress 

Elisa Subin 

Olus­eye Fakinlede 

Brit­tany Ackerman

Caitlin Cow­an 

Cyd­ney Mangubat 

Heather Bar­tos

Lau­ra Valeri 

Allisa Cher­ry 

Ste­vie Edwards 

Julia Kolchin­sky Dasbach

Seth Leep­er

Jen­ny Molberg

Mark Neely

Chi­som Okafor

Sara Puoti­nen

Mag­gie Queeney

Maxwell Suzu­ki


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I would be remiss not to acknowl­edge the work of our atten­tive genre edi­tors whose vital labor of cura­tion is the cen­tral core that dri­ves The Account.

For more on the editors 

Lyn­d­sey Ellis, Fic­tion Editor

Rachele Salvi­ni, Non­fic­tion Editor 

Christi­na Stod­dard, Poet­ry Edi­tor, Man­ag­ing Editor 

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A spe­cial thank you to our Founding/Consulting Edi­tor Tyler Mills whose sup­port has kept the ship sail­ing, and has allowed The Account to sus­tain with an eye towards acces­si­bil­i­ty for our read­er­ship.

For more on Tyler Founding/Consulting Editor

Tyler Mills 

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And thank you, to you read­er, for your thought­ful atten­tion. At a time where every moment has end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties it’s heart­en­ing to see lit­er­ary works as the start­ing point for con­ver­sa­tion, and the fore­ground for com­mu­ni­ty.

End­less Grat­i­tude,


Sean Cho A.

Edi­tor in Chief 

The Account