Welcome to the Fall 2020 issue of Unearthed!

At the beginning of this past September, seven ESF students volunteered to help edit and build this semester’s issue of Unearthed. Together, they met frequently to discuss submissions, mission, and themes. As a team, we discussed how this issue might differ from those of the past; we agreed that choosing a sub-theme would help us both discuss and support the wide array of incredible work being produced during these fractured times. At first, we proposed change. Then, we came across the word “unravel” and it wasn’t long before that word kept us all immersed, transfixed.

This issue begins with some of our student editors introducing readers and listeners to the theme of unravel with an audio story. It is followed by an interview with the outstanding writer Scott Russell Sanders, who has for decades dedicated his life and work to being a steward of Earth. The issue itself includes work from over twenty writers and artists. There is poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and photography. You will read texts focused on and disrupted by place; you will view images that capture people and spaces mid-unravel; you will find work from students at SUNY-ESF and much more from across the globe; most of all, hopefully you will share with us in how each of these contributions unearths and unravels ideas, theories, emotions, and truths.

This has been a challenging season to put an issue together. Due to Covid-19, how we read and encounter writing and art has drastically changed for many of us, so we hope you can find a space to hang out, whether it be for reflection or escape or immersion or just enjoyment.

The challenging fact for us at Unearthed has always been that we often have to turn down good work. Issues strum together their own shape, and each flickers from a new island. That said, we always encourage writers and artists to submit again in the future, and we look forward to another issue in the spring.

Special thanks to the student editorial board who helped generate energy behind this issue, and curate its shape. They are:

Anna Chwiejczak, Natalie Davey (whose image is the banner image on our home page), Gavin Duncan, Lindsay Eberhart (who also supplied many of the lead images for the text), Gillian Hall, Arik Palileo, and Courtney Scheffler.

This issue could also not have been made possible without the support of the the Writing, Rhetoric & Communications Program, and Joel Shaw, from the Office of Communications and Marketing at SUNY-ESF.

Feel free to email us at [email protected] with any questions. In the meantime, enjoy this issue (scroll down to see the issue in alphabetical order, or click on any links for quick access).

Cheers, Tyler Flynn Dorholt

Managing Editor