Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Indian River Review! The germ of an idea that was dropped into fecund soil years ago has finally propagated, put down spidery roots, sprouted like a green–leaved seedling above the brackish surface. We hope that like the red mangroves that shape our namesake river The Indian River Review will serve as fertile habitat for the literary and photographic arts of the Treasure Coast and help protect against the erosion of the cultural and artistic stratum that makes any place a rich one to live. Although our roots are local—the editors are all Indian River State College faculty—our scope tends outward beyond the region: we received submissions from Eastern Europe and China, as well as from across the United States. The theme of the issue is Time and Place, and these poems and stories and essays are testament to the power of the particular: this gravestone or Agave bottle or Chicago street-corner, that instant when the breath is held, the phone call that changes everything. In short, we have been enriched by the endeavor; we hope you are too.