Welcome to Issue 8.3
Transformation

A Note from the Editor:

In high school, I was the person that would fade into the background. The student who wouldn’t speak unless spoken to and ate their lunch in the library, enjoying the comfort of books rather than people. When it came time to move onto campus at the University of Mary Washington, I took it as a moment of metamorphosis. Everyone around me was a stranger, so I could choose to be whomever I wanted. Now, after four years, I’ve gone from a background character to taking hold of my own story. In this issue of the Rappahannock Review, we focused on a theme of transformation. Whether it’s an external change, a shift in perspective, healing of trauma, or coming out as your authentic self, the word transformation can have many different meanings to different people.

The stories, essays, and poems you’ll read in this issue, each deal with a different type of transformation. In Martha Silano’s “I’m reminded of my mother’s chipped plate collection,” we see a daughter dealing with the grief of losing her mother. In Ellen Skirvin’s “Need You,” we witness the gruesome transformation of a woman into a vampire. In Carling Ramsdell’s “Whistling Woodwinds, Unfurling Flowers,” the story not only gives us evocative imagery of her house transforming into a forest, but there is the transformation of the girl herself. Our breath catches as a quiet girl fading into the background takes a small step into the light. All the pieces captured our attention in gripping ways and made us contemplate our own transformations.

For our summer Issue 8.3 of the Rappahannock Review, our editorial team strived to find stories, essays, and poems that truly exhibited the nature of transformation. We wanted to curate a collection that touched every aspect of what that could mean to someone. We hope you explore all of its facets and that you may reflect on the transformations you’ve had in your own life.

Beck Zytowski, Editor in Chief