Hi All,
So this edition will be hitting your eyes, or hands, or tables, or shelves, or really I think you get the point and I can stop with my litany. As I was saying, though, this issue is coming out a little late. I assume this is a safe space and that I can say to you all that life is weighing heavy as of late here in the states. As a volunteer run organization where those volunteers are running around frantically solving the problems in our own lives, things have been a bit chaotic. We aim to stay on a publication schedule that gives you a spring and a fall edition. This year, though, you get a Summer and Fall/Winter edition.
As for what’s in this issue: You are in for some treats. There is a thread throughout this issue of the non-human in relation to us. Questions like how do other species support humanity? How would other species survive what we have done? How much of a human is still the human when you start chipping us away? It makes sense that these are themes we would see come through regularly. In a time when media, war, politics, etc. are asking us to further individualize we use speculative fiction as a lens to question what that really means. What does it mean to invade the home of a being that has been there much longer than we have? How do we reconnect with world that we have actively or passively removed ourselves from? Why should we continue living?
Right now the mortality of all things is staring us in the face. Our mother is dying, her flora withering, her fauna choking. Whole cultures, beautiful microcosms of what it means to live are being squashed without remorse. We are working ourselves to an exhausted end for the greedy overlords who have decided this planet is only good for them. All of us are frantically making are to think through what this means. This issue reflects that thinking from the cover image titled Artificial God by Mads Schubert to the interview with Ian MacDonald. We are all thinking about what it means to live. What else is living. How we can share a living planet with others. We aren’t doing it well right now. Maybe we still can. As Robin Wall Kimmerer said in Braiding Sweetgrass, “How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like? If we can’t imagine the generosity of geese?
Keep thinking, please. Keep caring. Keep reaching out. Keep making art.
end transmission,
M. J. Woods
Editor-in-Chief
Reading List:
Reading/Watching List: (short and sweet cause we all have too much right now)
- The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It’s Too Late by Cory Doctorow
- Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)
- Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers
- Zombvivor (2025)
Leave a Reply