Editor's note

Thank you for taking the time to read Tiger Leaping Review’s seventh issue. We’ve been hard at work selecting pieces these past few months, and as usual, it was immensely difficult narrowing down our final publication pool to 10 authors. We’d like to spend some time thanking everyone who submitted to us this past issue; the Tiger Leaping Review community would not exist without everyone’s support.

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than two years since Tiger Leaping Review was launched (happy 2026!), and we’re so proud to have grown in both the fiction and poetry communities in that time. And on that note, we’d like to introduce several new team members who have joined us in – and were an immense help compiling – Issue 7. Please welcome Jihoo Bae, Ellen Lei, Morgan Matchuny, Maya Weiss, and Rachel Li to Tiger Leaping Review! It’s been so exciting to navigate the literary community with these amazing people, and we can’t wait to continue with them on the way forward.

The pieces in this issue have a remarkable depth we’d like to spend a brief moment reflecting on. “Letter to a Younger Self” by Claudia Kessel, for instance, explores the deep regrets and lessons one can only learn with age. “In youth, you filled journals with vivid dreams,” Kessel writes. “By middle age, you’ll waken with scraps and feathered traces, /…The leftover pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, unfinished.” On the other hand, Kait Quinn reflects on the nostalgic, almost fearful passing of time in her poem “Will You Still Love Me When the Plains Are Fallow?” “One day I'll come home, / and there will be no bluebonnets, no buttercups, / no Indian paintbrushes left to pluck or pollen…” Quinn writes. “Will you still love me / when the plains are fallow, when I drain my teeth / of venom and gun of bullets?”

The stories reflected in this issue truly encompass deep themes, and we hope they feel as special to you as they do for us. We’re so incredibly grateful for all your support over the past few years and we hope you can find some joy today in the prose and poetry we’ve shared here on this platform.

Without further ado, please welcome Allen Seward, Caleb Horowitz, Claudia Kessel, Ed Schad, James B. Nicola, Kait Quinn, Lefcothea Maria Golgaki, Marie Anne Arreola, Megana Adigal, and Samuel Prestridge to the Tiger Leaping community!

Love,

Claire, Kenna, and Mira

EICs at TLR