A pudgy, old business man with a salt-and-pepper mustache and over-sized glasses from the 70’s appeared in one of my classes a while back to deliver a speech loaded with god-awful inspirational quotes and shameless business plugs. While most of my time was spent cringing at the cheesiness of his presentation, he mentioned one idea that stuck in my brain: we are the same people five years from now that we are today except for the places we go, the people we meet, and the books we read. While the quote wasn’t particularly tattoo-worthy, it resonated with my love of all things literature-related, especially the very literary magazine that you hold in your hands right now. This creation is the product of hundreds of hours given by artists, writers, and editors alike. In these pages, you’ll encounter emotions and experiences that are pure and unadulterated by the need to impress or please other people; they exist to teach us a lesson in humanity, to address the issues that we often times choose to ignore, and to deliver a perspective that you perhaps haven’t encountered before. As the editor-in-chief of a magazine with over 700 readers, I take pride in presenting the beauty and the pain of the English language, the nakedness and the rawness of our art, and the community we have created in From the Fallout Shelter. – Claire Meler, Editor-in-Chief