"Why Can't We Be Friends?" is the title and theme of this issue. As young writers and artists ask and are asked this question, their works evoke hope, emotion, memory, and escape. Hear of siblings, secrets, sleep, death, desire, closets, and definitions.

— Simon Traub-Epstein, International Library of Young Authors

From the Website: "Umläut is an arts journal for emerging writers, photographers, filmmakers, visual artists, and musicians, run out of the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts Creative Writing department, in San Francisco. It was recognized for excellence as a literary magazine by the National Council of Teachers of English in 2013. It is our mission to gather the works from developing artists, and bring them to a wider audience.”