In returning to Sentience for Issue Two, the editors wanted to create a bookend to the “Isolation” of Issue One. In part, this is because Sentience began as a pandemic project, conceived as a way to keep story and language moving in a time of palpable disconnection, an extension of workshopping from a distance and not wanting those lines of communication to fall silent. Partly, we wanted to acknowledge the progress of the world through the pandemic, the hopefulness that our collective isolations were coming to an end. Of course, nothing is quite that simple when it comes to COVID-19, but that things have changed – our communications, our human bonds, our labors, our intimacies and expressions and yearnings – is undeniable.

This is what “Connections” has become in the hands of our contributors: an exploration of all that intersects and what those intersections make and unmake within us. While the editorship of Sentience has undergone changes and the issue itself encountered delays on its way to find you, our readers, the goal of the “Connections” issue has remained fundamentally unchanged.

We sincerely hope that you enjoy your time in “Connections.” We certainly enjoyed bringing it to you.

Helen Doremus,

Managing Editor, Sentience Literary Journal