from the publisher

It's almost a year to the day that I sat down and wrote out my vision for this magazine.

on stoop-sitting and siblings
I spent much of last spring on the second step in front of my San Francisco apartment. It was quite different from the stoops I had inhabited in Brooklyn and New York's East Village, where I looked out at shirtless domino players and hipsters smoking cigarettes and listened to mothers yell down three flights to children playing in the street. As I scribbled notes about On the Page from the stoop of my rundown Victorian in San Francisco, I watched a line of well-dressed twenty-somethings gather in front of the crëperie across the street as a flock of SUV drivers searched for parking spaces, and heard our upstairs neighbor yelling on her bullhorn for the diesel trucks bearing goods to the health food store across the street to "Turn off your engine, now. Now. Now."

In the midst of creating OtP last year, I bounced between my family on both coasts; it's not surprising, therefore, that siblings emerged as one of the magazine's first themes. It's a difficult relationship to capture in print or pictures—a precarious combination of caring, resentment, love, and envy, of a present that's always colored by the past, and of connection and disconnection. For the next three weeks, you will find memoirs, essays, short stories, and poems that we believe capture this mix.

week one, siblings
Our collection for the first week could share the title of Mimi Chakarova's work, The Distance Between Us. In Shattered, Colin Berry describes a relationship with his older brother separated by geography, hope, and rage, and bound by a shared appreciation for the Rolling Stones. In Susan Terris's Palatino, the poet sums up the difference between the worlds of a sister and her brother in one word. In You Can Count on Me, trust me, Samantha Schoech explains the qualities of Kenneth Lonergan's sibling story that differentiate the film from the blockbusters that took home the Oscars last week.

sibling recommendations, photos, and more
Speaking of movies, we have selected a range of sibling-oriented films, books, authors, and musicians for daily recommendations, along with a display of sister and brother photos that will change almost daily.

In the coming weeks, look for more sibling essays, poems, and stories, including works about children of Vermont Buddhists, playing one-on-one basketball with your brother, and searching for a brother you have never met.

did you miss the first days of spring?
If you missed our spring supplement, please take a look at these works that describe the sad, yet liberating, possibilities of cross-country travel and the night sky, of naked trees in Central Park, and of being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Of course, our entire first issue on Outsiders and Community, addressing a range of topics from fake lesbians to John le Carré, is still here.

coming soon, a party
Also, we will soon be holding parties in San Francisco and in New York. Would you like to attend? Please let us know.

And, as always, we love to hear from you.

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