Hello and welcome (or welcome back) to Silly Goose Press! We can’t believe we’re publishing our fourth issue already, but you know what they say: time flies when you’re having a honking good time!

Our editors had such a blast cracking open these pieces and getting to know our contributors. We’ve been so lucky to be able to work with so many amazing creatives and, as always, we are elated to add these goslings to our pond.

We’ve noticed that even though our editors work independently to select the pieces that fill out their genres, we are able to find themes that run throughout sections, if not the whole, of our issues. This round we noticed several pieces that explored the idea of being somewhere new, revisiting something from your past, familial complexities, or how a particular taste or smell can spark a memory.

Perhaps we’re just honking into the void and making connections where there are none, but it seems a very natural and human (read: goose) thing to do. We all make connections, find little threads and pull on them to see where they go. We hope that you, our dear readers, can find a way to connect these pieces to your own lives. Pick a thread, pull at it, and maybe you’ll unravel something wonderful.

As always, thanks so much for taking a swim in our pond! And if you’re

going to be at AWP in LA this year, please come say hi–we’ll be at

table T919! We’d love to goose around with you.

We love you! Honk honk!

Dearest Goose,

You know, there’s something about the number four: four corners, four seasons, four suits in a deck of cards, four Beatles, four original Silly Geese…But here, in our fourth issue of Silly Goose Press, we’re thinking of changing our favorite number.

As you, dearest goose, may or may not know, we added three new members to our Flock at the end of 2024: Julia Shelley (our amazing project manager who keeps us all in line with her insane organization skills and action items), Ian Wuertz (who has helped so much with fiction, organizing for AWP, and keeping the geese guffawing), and Annelise Schoups (voice of reason and queen of copy editing). After some thought, we’ve decided that the only appropriate way to keep ourselves organized is by splitting off into Varsity and JV teams. So the original four of us (Lexi, Parker, Rhiannon, & Eric) made Varsity Flock, and are supported endlessly by Julia, Ian, and Annelise; they are truly the JV Flock of our dreams.

While we, the original four, probably could have gathered our wits about us enough to dredge up an issue on our own, it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun without our three new members of the Flock. We are so immensely grateful to them for their time and talents, and we know they are going to be invaluable going forward. Like any collaborative project, putting together a magazine takes a lot of time, hard work, dedication, knowledge, and (particularly in our case) commitment to the bit. We, the Varsity Geese, are just so lucky to have such amazing friends who are willing to build their nests around our pond.

So, now there are seven. Seven is a good number. We like seven. Seven days of the week, seven colors of the rainbow, seven continents, seven notes in a standard music scale, seven deadly sins, seven heavenly virtues, seven Silly Geese…

Whether this is your first time reading our magazine or you’ve been with us since the beginning, all seven of uswant to thank you for being here. We hope that our little corner of the literary world can supply you with enough whimsy to get you through the day, and that you enjoy these pieces by our amazing goslings. Find the magical within the mundane, and the mundane within the magical.

HONKS & KISSES

-The Flock

(aka Lexi, Parker, Eric, Rhiannon, Ian, Julia, Annelise) (aaka the Seven Silly Geese)