This morning, the Editor and the Talestack Office Dogs went on their usual stroll around Talestack HQ and found a patch of daffodil buds at the edge of the woods, rising up out of the frost, bright green spears reaching for the thin winter sunlight. It was a beautiful reminder that winter is never the last word, and that the soil under the ice is still alive and teeming with inspiration. I felt some version of that same thrill as I put together this issue today. The seeds of 2026’s projects are already stirring in the soil, and Substack fiction is alive and well, regardless of our individual and communal winters.