Our interactive world, for all its revelatory interconnectivity, also contains vast amounts of purposeful vagueness and misunderstood dialogue. Indeed, Lines + Stars itself hails from a city where the covert and clandestine is often the norm. The writers featured in our Summer 2010 issue, "Code Words," center on this way of being, speaking and behaving. They present their words in a "coded" style, such as in Michael Estabrook's frenetic and imagistic "Goats Oklahoma and Frozen Candles"; or speak of garbled, failed attempts at communication, like Kay Middleton does in her piece "Disconnect." And in her book review, Janelle Kihlstrom tackles the problems of ritual and language -- both ethnic and familial -- deliberated in Jehanne Dubrow's recent collection From the Fever World.

For our next issue, we'll change gears a bit. Send us your poems and stories about things that are hand-hewn -- literally or figuratively.

In exciting -- albeit far-in-advance -- news, Lines + Stars has been invited to participate in Frostburg State University's Small and Regional Press Festival, which will take place this October. We're honored to be included with some great Mid-Atlantic regional presses and literary journals. Come support the festival, meet local writers and editors, and visit our table! We will have goodies for you. You can find out more here.