This book ushers you into many worlds, all of them our world. It is full of voices, sounds, and people. Stay with them, and they will stay with you. The stories here represent eight tenths of a year. A year that kept slipping, yet also kept giving.Their writers gave them freely, and we do, too.Like all stories, they work in a thousand ways. Some lull, some lure. Some pinch, some stretch.Some are like a thicket, some a formal garden; others seem like valleys slick with rain. All replenish and reward.