Each of these outstanding entries from the 2023 Hysteria Writing Competition has been crafted with care by the authors, writers and poets who submitted them. The theme this year was magic and these pieces demonstrate just how many different ways an imagination can explore such a topic. From the almost obvious magician's tricks to the magic of meeting the right person on Oxford Street, we are taken on a journey through history, psychology, humour and pathos. Words, and the language they make up are, I believe, the most powerful tools we have at our disposal. The way they are used to understand and experience the world is a minute-by-minute work of creative magic dressed up to look like 'ordinary' life. But ordinary this alchemical reaction is not. The stories, flash fiction and poetry submitted to this year's Hysteria Writing Competition are linguistic alchemy. We all know a picture paints a thousand words, and the job of a writer is to weave their words into a picture the reader can see in their mind. And yet, every single picture created in the many minds which read these exceptional pieces will be different, because we are all different. It is through the magic of words, pulled together into sentences and paragraphs, that we can begin to build a different picture of the world we live in. Savour the texture of the words and language used by each writer in this volume. Take time to see the world through their eyes, and then contrast that with the way you see the world through yours, notice the difference, if there is one. Read it a second time to see if it impacts you differently this time around; what pictures are created in your head? Ask yourself why the work created this picture rather than another, and then reflect on all that brings us together rather than that which strives to pull us apart. Good writing stands the test of time and if you let them, each one of these pieces of magical writing will stay with you long after you have closed the book and put it, for a time, on your bookshelf.