This, the first online edition fósforo, comes at a particularly difficult time. At press time, COVID-19 had caused some 2,000,000 infections and 120,000 deaths in the United States alone. In response to the pandemic, the College suspended in-person classes on Friday, March 13, obliging students to leave campus and finish their studies remotely. Earlier that morning, police in Louisville, Kentucky, burst through the door of Breonna Taylor’s apartment and, after a confused confrontation, killed her in a hail of bullets. Her death formed part of a murderous outburst against African Americans, one that prompted nationwide, and then worldwide, protests against a devastating history of racial killings and police violence. fósforo 17 appears against this bleak cultural landscape. A vein of its content reflects the outrage and suffering of a community rent by violence, alienation, and disease. More generally, however, the works serve as examples of how members of our community have tried to represent and understand difference, to inhabit new worlds, comfortable or not, through creative expression. Taken together, they invite us to reflect on ourselves and our communities during this season of fear and mistrust.