Welcome to the seventh volume of The Sparrow.

This is one of the longest volumes to date, and quantity has by no means meant a lack of quality, as the selection of short stories, poetry and
illustrations show.

The volume starts with Thomas Dreja’s “All that Glitters”, a moral tale, if you like, about being careful what we wish for in life. Luise Heinlein’s “The Promotion” is a dark story of paranoia with a disturbing final twist, followed by Carolyn Kotlowski’s “On Second Thought” which deals with the problem of relationships and self-doubt. We then have “The Autograph” by Michael Müller, which deals with the theme of the life-changing impact even the smallest of things can have. The volume’s first poem is by Katja Rogers, an existential piece about disorientation and survival in the face of an apparently hostile world. This is followed by Sarah Schmid’s “Robert Mazur or: What We’ll Never Know, Because Sometimes Life’s Like That!”, a short portrayal of the absurdity bizarreness of life, leaving the readers’ imaginations roam free at the end. Next we have two contributions from Nadja Streeck, the first is the short story “What If…?” about family relationships and life-changing choices, the second is a poem, “Drowning in Words”, the poet’s surreal attempt to escape the overwhelming power of words. Sebastian Weber has also contributed two pieces: “Futures”, a delightful moral lesson in the harsh reality of survival, and “Train Ride”, a magic realism story about the impact people can make on your life. Then we have “Absolution” by Luise Wolf, dealing with the themes of loss, anger and forgiveness, and to finish off Kiara Vestgium has given us “Strawberry and Chocolate”, a story about the acceptance of death. We also have two excellent illustrations provided by Mark Kessel and Carolyn Kotlowski.

We hope that you, the readers, will enjoy reading the contributions, and possibly be encouraged to contribute to The Sparrow yourselves!

The Editors