We're putting the final touches on the fourth issue of The Austin Review, and we are so proud of the stunning work that was sent our way-we feel tremendously lucky to publish it, and we're eager to share it with all of you soon. Until then, here's a little teaser of the artwork and a sneak peek at each piece in the issue, plus a chance to pre-order.PRE-ORDERSPlease pre-order your copy today! Click through to the following link and select Issue 4: STORE. The issue's layout is nearly done, and then off it goes to our printer. We'll send your copy as soon as it's ready. ARTWORKJordan Gentry's beautiful painting "Willow" forms our cover. Jordan is an artist based in Austin who works primarily in portraits. Her time is occupied by working to develop and evolve her personal style, serving at Big Medium, and providing commissions to families and individuals. Each artistic pursuit refines her creativity, knowledge, and technique.Please visit Jordan's webpage here and support her work. SNEAK pEEKAnd some of our favorite lines from each story in Issue 4:"The image of our face is how we know we are human. It's where we show our humanity. The mug shot obliterates our ability to recognize a person as a person. In a mug shot a person is only a person because of his resemblance to a human being. A mug shot is a wound."-Jess Stoner, "The Prison Must Know Its Own""After a few months of working at the wig store, we began to sneak the wigs home at night."- Adam Ortman, "The Wig Store""I was trapped on the hood of a car, waiting for a chance to make a break for home or for my friend to discover that his German shepherd had gotten free."-Jerald Walker, "Milo""It started off innocently enough: a diagnosis with terms fit for a children's book. A spot on my father's lung, they said, as though it would take nothing more than a pencil eraser to scrub him clean. That first mention would be the only one where the doctor could afford to be cavalier."- Courtney Preiss, "Sadie Hawkins Day""When the man leading the Mars mission answered questions at a press conference, he said, We will find water. It is there. It was the same tone I used to announce that I loved who I loved."-Chelsea Hodson, "Stop Bath""Marla turns her head to look at the paramedics' limbs flying in all directions over the driver of the little yellow car's body. She sees masks and blood and gloves. Glass sparkles on the road. A thick black dead tire flaps stupidly in the breeze."-Alexandra Tanner, "West Palm""Perhaps it's wrong to comfort from the notion of elsewhere, some discordance with immediacy, but it's not the destination I'm concerned with so much as the act of leaving, the place itself being no place at all. Those throating geese offer an aria of the liminal, to which I listen intently, always."-Jess Williard, "To the Arrowheads of Migrating Geese""Late at night, she curates the things she has lost with no hope of recovery. She is trying to preserve them as best she can. But as she catalogs these lost things, they take on weight, and the weight becomes too much to bear, so she must abandon them once more by forgetting."- Dawna Kemper, "Dogs""Crooked blinds advertise a dirty, dirty sex soul, a woman to be avoided, lest her lust rub off on the rest of us."-Dawn S. Davies, "The Slattern""There comes a point when your husband becomes a reminder of the life you left for him. I didn't know how to love that reminder."-Catherine Carberry, "A Canal, Panama"
