Welcome to Issue 2.3

A Note From the Editor:

When I was five years old, after I’d been unjustly sent to my room by my mother, I decided I had had enough. I packed up a blanket and some toys and made it all the way to the end of our driveway, before I reached a small obstacle. I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself. There I stood, until my mother happened to glance out the window and called me inside. The next time I wanted to run away, I was eleven and this time, instead of gathering up stuffed animals, I saved some cash and stashed granola bars in a backpack. In the end, I decided it wasn’t the right time to run away. After all, I’d gotten braces, and I couldn’t exactly leave before they were removed.

I quickly learned the impracticalities of running away. How would I be able to cross the road? There wouldn’t be orthodontist I could just happen upon out in the wild. So, the next time I planned a getaway, I allowed a character in a story to do it for me. I’ve always had the desire to leave the world I was in and search for new and exciting things. When I was younger, and even still today, I found escape in stories like The Boxcar Children, or From the Mixed­-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, or Trickster’s Choice. I wanted to go on adventures myself—hiding out in libraries or a boxcar—and even getting kidnapped by pirates seems more exciting than terrifying.

In this issue of the Rappahannock Review we worked hard to choose pieces that reflected the many possible variations of flight. Some authors were literal in their interpretations—so many airplanes and birds!—but other authors offered a more subtle reflection of the theme. There might not have been a direct link to flight as air travel, but there existed a deeper potential, sometimes even that same desire that I felt when I climbed out my bedroom window: the desire to run from something or toward something new. We hope this issue of Rappahannock Review offers you a similar journey.

Editor in Chief