Hello Earthlings,
I found this letter very intimidating for a myriad of reasons both good and bad. Since I can’t ask you all which you would prefer to read first, I am going to start with the more pleasant of the two options.
The good ones are really good. The first being that there are more people tuning into what we are doing here at Kismet each day. The interest and response to what we are trying to create continues to amaze us all here on the staff and we are so excited to continue creating this community and space with each of you. The second lovely reason is that I am intimidated by trying to tell you about the incredible pieces we have in this issue. It’s hard to try and put into words thoughts good enough for how I feel about the art that we get to share with you all. In the realm of fiction, we have a wild and topsy turvy piece about a ghost… sort of. A set of missives on some wild flora or fauna that don’t exist in this world. We also have a piece about what happens to gods as new prevailing beliefs take over the collective human mind. In the world of poetry, we have pieces about deep space, bizarre shopping experiences, human bodies being shaped and changed, and bugs that like to party. Lastly, our nonfiction highlights two pieces of media that I think all of you should consume as a kind of salve in these turbulent times.
OK, now for the bad: Things are looking very bleak these days. Not just in the U.S., not just in Palestine, not just in Ukraine, but all over in a myriad of ways. As a zine that started as a way to imagine ways forward, it is hard to come to you all and try and offer something to look toward when we know that it’s hard to even look for the end of each day. I don’t want to present you all with some misplaced optimism. Trying to imagine saying, “yay come read this art” in a time like this is hard. So instead, while, yes, you should go read these pieces, and of course, yes, you should keep dreaming, and, yes, we should be still radically imagining, and, yes, you should still try and dig joy out of the very soil we still shakily stand on, and, yes, you should still be having good meals with good people, and, yes, you should still live… I know that all these things are not currently feasible for all of us. So instead I’ll reaffirm that none of you are alone. Find us in Bloomington if you are near us; find us in Discord if you are not, mutual aid works. I’ll restate part of last issue’s opening because I said it better last time than I am trying to now: Come find the rest of us, wherever we may be, and work to bring these imagined realities to life.
As with the last issue we invite you to sit with these words for as long as you would like. Then, when you’re ready, pass it on. Discuss it with a friend. As always, you can find our community here in these pages, on Instagram, Bluesky, kofi, Substack, and our Discord server. Thanks so much for reading!
In Community,
M. J. Woods
Editor-in-Chief
Reading List:
If you would like to connect this issue with the larger world of writing here is our suggested reading list. This is a mix of things that were mentioned in the issue and also other works with similar themes.
- Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Naylor
- The Martian Revolution by Mike Duncan (this is a podcast but close enough)
- Imagination: a Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin
- The Martin Hensch Books by Cory Doctorow
- Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
- Embroidered Worlds edited by Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Olha Brylova, and Iryna Pasko
- Thyme Travellers edited by Sonia Sulaiman
- Universal Love Stories by Alexander Weinstein
- Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey
- The Rise of Western Christendom by Peter Brown
The Kismet Magazine 
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