"In the time and space that I inhabit, in both the present and the past, I exist within my memories and thoughts. Recalling a past experience requires understanding that you aren't being told an account of what's really happened, but the memory of an experience that may differ from the reality. The circumstances of reality that I, and many people have found themselves in, can be strange. In hearing a story, or recalling a memory, our subjectivity play a key role, and it is through this lens that the world is experiences. A difficult story can evoke in the reader or listener feelings of danger, heartbreak, and change, and often the resolution creates more questions than it answers. The stories I have collected each possess a quality that brings me back to the again and again long after I have finished them. After contemplating the questions that these narratives evoke, this process itself renders then a part of my own experience and memory. These stories are where one can investigate the lives and decisions of others that are simultaneously relatable and also alienating. Strange circumstances blur what is real and lived, with realities and ideas that are ours forever." -Caroline Elsner