Volume 2020

Dearest reader--
Welcome to the 2020 edition of The Echo. Due to the pandemic, you are likely reading the digital version of our annual publication. This is certainly not the release I had planned for The Echo, nor is it the release that our contributors deserve, but it is the release that we get. I first began my work with The Echo during the fall semester of 2016, when I was a newly-minted Furman freshman. I was 18 and furious, still reeling from the implications of the presidential election. Plenty has changed since then, though one thing has remained the same: the abject chaos of our world. It’s true what they say—change is the only constant. (They do still say that, right?)

Like everything else, the future of The Echo is uncertain. I’m not sure how Furman will deal with the developing global crisis, and I don’t know whether we will be able to print a limited run of this year’s Echo or not. Only time (and budgeting) will tell. (If you are holding a print edition of the magazine in your hands right now, that means we succeeded in running a print edition of this year’s volume.)

Anyway, all this is to say that I have no idea what will happen next—to me, to you, to anyone under the sun. Perhaps nothing will happen. Perhaps the world will end. The one thing I do know--the one thing that has always held true--is that good art endures. May you find something in this issue that keeps you up at night.