Our first issue of 2015 is a ver-i-ta-ble inter-na-tional soirée! "Off-Season With Snake" chron-i-cles writer Xu Xi's return to Hong Kong to care for her aging mother. Ray-mund P. Reyes's "Asian God-dess" intro-duces us to Jameel, a Fil-ipino hus-tler plying his trade in Saudi Ara-bia. In Zdravka Evtimova's "Dis-tinc-tion," we visit Bul-garia and an epic cart race with love and brandy hang-ing in the bal-ance. All this and more, includ-ing new work from Archer/Straus, M. A. Schaffner, Suzanne Scan-lon, Amy Wright, David C. Hall, Clarissa N G, Daniel Cosh-n-ear, Mazzer D'Orazio, Jen-nie Mal-boeuf, Alex Rieser, Craig Mar-tin Getz, Melanie Dun-bar, Arkava Das, and Gregg Williard.