A week or so ago, I was a couple of miles into a run, enjoying the relative cool of dusk in central Florida. I was on the outskirts of Oakland when a peacock ran out of the woods and across the trail just a dozen feet or so in front of me. His companion, realizing I was there, stopped short of crossing and instead turned and ran along the side of the trail, just at the edge of the woods. And there I was, running along the trail with this thing of striking, luminescent beauty matching pace with me for fifteen, perhaps as many as twenty yards.

And the feeling that I had then is very much like the feeling I have had in assembling our ninth issue, which appears today: it’s a feeling I can describe only as wonder at the miracle of the beautiful things that suddenly, often unexpectedly enter our lives. I am grateful and often quite speechless that such a fine group of writers have joined us for this issue, that their beautiful, arresting words are here, following this path with us.

Some of the writers you’ll find in this issue will be familiar to regular readers of Willows Wept Review: writers like Howie Good, Kathleen Kraft, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, Heather Gustine, Jim Davis, John Sibley Williams, John Swain, and Nick McRae.

This issue features cover art by Shida Cao and includes a host of voices that are new to WWR this issue–Andrew S. Taylor, Ben Bever, Corey Wakeling, Judith Skillman, David Blomenberg, Fernando Pérez, George Brooks, Sean Ruane, J. P. Dancing Bear, Jeff Alan, Jeffrey Tucker, Kevin Heaton, Kirsty Logan, Ashley Schreckengast, Lisa Marie Basile, M. J. Iuppa, Nick Petrone, and Russell Jaffe–and I’m very glad that they’ve joined us here.

And so I introduce Issue Nine: Fall 2010 with a feeling of wonder and gratitude–thankful for the people who have shared their talents here, and for you, our reader.