At the time of this issue’s creation, I too had dark hair and green eyes—it was difficult for me not to think of this magazine as my child.

My closest colleagues easily recognized my physical resemblance to the cover and I often joked with them that this issue was both my baby and my dragon—a project that needed to be both nurtured and conquered, especially given our new virtual format—Shoes Before Socks was the first issue that Mechanism Press completed entirely over Zoom.

Sharing my screen, we went through the entire design process. We started by selecting our cover art—a piece titled Fair Realiti that we believed best depicted our theme of Shoes Before Socks, a feeling of desperately attempting to find comfort in discomfort and disruption. This broken woman quickly became a muse, as, from this selection, I was able to form the color palette by pulling from her best colors—drawing inspiration from her cheeks, lips, hair, and eyes—that were used throughout the book. 

Then came the tedious task of laying out over 150 pages of prose, poetry, artwork, and photography. I was once told by a professor, “it is no longer enough to have good words; they must be good-looking words.” It was advice that I constantly considered as I handled the words of others, to which I realized early on that this magazine would only ever be as good as its contributors—luckily for me, we had amazing authors, photographers, and artists who collectively showed vulnerability and strength in wildly troubled times, and what an honor it was to be able to present them in their best light. As I concluded the third issue of Open Ceilings, I have felt so humbled that I was able to illuminate words that were not just good, but overwhelmingly moving and thoughtful.