One thousand words: that’s the limit we chose for Mental Papercuts. One thousand words to tell an entire story. To create a world. To change a reader, however slightly. We wanted to create a platform for the stories that leave something behind in the mind of readers. We strove to showcase stories that linger for a little too long, then come back at random moments. This is why Mental Papercuts celebrates the odd and the off-kilter. The ordinary and the extraordinary. The goofy and the serious. It’s also why we chose flash—with so little room for error, every moment carries with it a weight.

There are so many, many ways to tell a story, and those collected in our inaugural issue highlight a vast array of voices, styles, and worldviews, just as we set out to do. Each one of them is a soaring mental paper cut in one way or another. A fluid range of stories for a fluid definition.

Mental Papercuts itself is a labor of love. It only exists because of the incredibly talented people who worked on this magazine, people whom I am privileged to call my friends. It’s sheer happenstance that I took on the leadership role that I did, and if it weren’t for the unabashed support from every person who worked on this magazine, there sure as hell wouldn’t be a magazine to read. Thank you to all of our editors. Thank you to all of our authors. Thank you to all of our readers.

Stories, after all, are meant to be shared—so get reading! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Just be sure to grab a box of Band-Aids.

Anna Moritz

Editor-in-Chief