“Humbled by the River”

 

Dearest Readers,

It is with sincere gratitude that I introduce to you our winter anthology, “Humbled by the River,” and invite you to check out the collection of work if you have not done so already. Though these diverse and incredible works have been available for your reading pleasure, since we began publishing the contents in November, we’d love for you to take a look at the completed body of work and hopefully enjoy the exceptional Poetry, vivid Fiction, provocative Flash, and unique Art / Photography – some of which you may have missed. This and future anthologies will also be available on ISSUU once our ISSN is approved and we will post it on Snapping Twig when the time commences. For now, we wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your readership, continued support and say thank you for encouraging us and our contributors by continuing to value art and the written word.

 

What’s in A Name?

The title of our winter anthology, “Humbled by the River,” has a special sentiment attached to it and we’d like to share that with you. To begin, I’d like to extend a warm thank you to our art director, Jeffrey Spahr-Summers, who we would not have been able to publish this anthology without, since he graciously donated a majority of his very interesting digital art, which was featured with the written submissions published throughout this collection. The title of the winter anthology came from one of his works and was also the feature art for the Flash piece titled, “Industry,” by Mitchell Grabois.

 

This piece of digital art titled, “Humbled by the River,” is from a series of several works by Spahr-Summers called, Art Therapy for Those Who are Bewildered Like Me.

When it was decided that this piece would be the cover of the winter anthology I knew right away that it was indeed a perfect choice and that it was especially fitting due to the individual work’s title, which is why I immediately asked Mr. Spahr-Summers if we could please use the title of the piece as the title of this anthology. Though he chose this title for reasons unknown to me at the time the art was produced, it was my own interpretation of it that fit so well with this collection.

Throughout the process of receiving and selecting the work that would embody this anthology, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the support of others – specifically from those who submitted work to us and contributed to this collection. A number of well-loved authors presented work, which both encouraged and humbled me while working on this anthology; including several which I have long before admired as a writer and respected as members of the literary arts community and who unbeknownst to them actually reside on my own list of literary heroes I’ve personally looked up to in the past.

You can probably imagine then the thrill and private little dance I did for every submission I received from one of these writers.

Likewise, it was an incredibly moving experience for me to publish some of the lesser known writers whose work I was equally impressed with and who I felt a kinship with as another creative heart just trying to achieve something remarkable with their words. I hope they trust that for me, they did…

 

A River Flowing

Needless to say I felt the work we received was like a river of beautiful and diverse expression whose momentum was enabled by the flowing support of those contributors, which I feel so grateful and humbled by – the opportunity to publish their work and to be, past and presently, in awe of their incredible voices.

There is a universal space for us all as creatives striving for the best expression of ourselves and because we know too well the struggle as well as exalted passion we all feel moved with as writers and artists. At best someone will read something we’ve written and feel something that forces them to value that work, but it isn’t easy and much of what we contribute as writers doesn’t pay us what we need to survive if anything at all –  we simply do it because it’s what we love, it’s in our bones and we appreciate it when someone does read it. Certainly I hope one day to be able to give something back to those who contribute their work to us, but for now all I can offer is the continued support and encouragement their work has given me, and my sincerest gratitude as well as admiration of them. That is exactly what we would like to encourage our readers to do as well and we hope you’ll share their work with others who can also appreciate the gift it is, both within and outside of  Snapping Twig.

As you take a minute to read the collection in this anthology, please join me in appreciation for art and words and those who dig deep to those secret parts of themselves that enable them to bring us their incredible work  –

 

In other words, please allow yourself to be Humbled by the River.

 

We want to especially Thank and Dedicate this collection of work to its Contributors:

 

Charles Bane Jr.

Valentina Cano

Seth David Jani

Joseph Farley

Charles F. Thielman

Bekah Steimel

Robin Wyatt Dunn

Kyle Hemmings

Corey Mesler

Harry Calhoun

Erin Emily Ann Vance

Steve Brightman

Howie Good

L. Ward Abel

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Jeffrey Zable

Ted Morrissey

Scott Archer Jones

William Quincy Belle

Alan Swyer

Richard King Perkins II

Rick Hartwell

Kenneth P. Gurney

Mark Jackley 

C.C. Russell

Colin Dardis

John Grey

Mathew H. Emma

 

and to

Danielle Turiano

– the artist who inspired this project –

Table of Contents

Gallery of Art from Humbled by the River

 

Final Note: Don’t forget our submissions are open year-round. We are currently selecting work for the Spring Anthology  SUBMIT!