As I’m finalizing this issue, arranging and tweaking, working with our newest members of the S&S contributor family, I keep thinking what a wonderfully weird issue. Once again it feels as if the right pieces fell into our laps, perfectly suited to the season, times, and each other.
Singularity Alice was the first piece we accepted for this issue, and I was stricken by how spare and beautiful the prose is, how topsy turvy the movement felt, and I hope you feel the same sensation of falling that I do. Mourners and Piece by Piece both approach love and loss, both perceived and real, in unique but complimentary ways, calling to mind notes of Aimee Bender’s The Rememberer. Earth Music and Belong to Me approach the intersection of human and alien life, one from the point of view of a young alien, the other from that of a spurned woman at a wedding. Seven takes us back to a time when childhood was magical, truly and literally, exposing the beauty and difficulty of growing up. Finally, Blood-Stained Letters Found in a Roadside Shrine on the Outskirts of Kyoto tells a tale of revenge and despair in epistolary form, exposing different elements of terrible loss through the eyes of T.
May you enjoy the bizarre and wonderful in this issue, and thank you, as always, for reading.
Ani King, EIC
