A journal of narrative writing.
Foreword

Dear Reader,

Happy holidays and welcome back to Conte. We are very excited to finally publish this third issue since it represents a heightened degree of energy, correspondence, and editorial commitment, and the results are nothing short of amazing. We've christened this issue the first of Volume Two, and we welcome a very talented web designer and programmer, Andy Hefner, to our staff; our fancy new digs are entirely thanks to him.

The poems in our third issue are very fitting for the dawn of a new year, since each one is (to a certain degree) about change, and how we cope with it. Ann Iverson's opening pieces about Iraq - just like our other war poems by R.T. Castleberry and Teresa R. Herlinger - encapsulate the brutal, harrowing nature of warfare on and off the field of battle, while Radames Ortiz's "Relapse" starkly details an individual's battle against addiction. Our other poetry selections are no less compelling; the work of Kyle Torke, Paul Hostovsky, Erin Teegarden, Charles Rafferty, and Evelyn Lauer reveal rites of passage that transcend culture, and range from burying pet mice to growing a beard. Last, but certainly not least, the poetry of Diane Hueter, Cynthia Belmont, and Bertha Rogers engages the everlasting theme of family, and shows how sometimes, love is shared in the simplest of gestures. We hope these poems invite you in, give you a chair, and feel fresh even after several readings, since they have remained an integral part of Conte's collective consciousness all winter.

Our prose pieces for this issue are equally outstanding. Louis Mello has contributed a striking and austere look at death and destiny in sub-Saharan Africa. Susan Dugan and Diane Neill weave tales for us of two families - one just beginning, one struggling to maintain composure - attempting to cope with dangers that lurk too close by for comfort. James Cho sates our wanderlust with his story about a restless woman torn between two continents, and Ira Shull paints a riveting picture of two young people caught in the inexorable currents of their diverging lives, with a climax we can only describe as unique. Last, but certainly but not least, we are truly pleased to feature an excerpt from veteran novelist Joanna Catherine Scott's new work of historical fiction entitled the Road to Chapel Hill, which will be on shelves at the end of the year.

We'd gush all day about our authors and contributors if we could, so we'll wrap this up by saying that we couldn't be more pleased with where our publication is at as we enter our second year, and our plans for the future are growing in scope by the minute. We sincerely thank everyone who's helped make Conte a continuing pleasure for us to work on. For us, issue 2.1 has been an auspicious start to a year we hope to look back on and say, "that's when it really started. That was our year."

Adam & Robert

January 2006