Welcome to Uncanny Magazine Year 7!
We hope that you will enjoy all that we have planned for the next six issues. We’re curating another year of art and beauty. Another year of provocative pieces that will make you think and feel. We are so excited to share all of these stories, poems, essays, interviews, podcasts, and artworks with you.
As I write this, Caitlin and Michael have been home for seven months. Lynne is working on campus a little but is otherwise home as well. We’re fortunate in many ways. The new house is adapted for Caitlin’s needs. She’s remained healthy since her major health scares. But like many, we know how fragile this is. If Caitlin gets Covid-19, we expect bad things after everything her lungs went through last fall. (She was on ventilators 5 times.) Our life is a balancing act between boredom and terror.
Which brings us to the American national stuff.
If you are reading this on release day, today is election day in the USA. We finally have a chance to oust the authoritarian assholes who have made the country and world worse in every possible way with their greed, hate, incompetence, and evil. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead because of their gross mishandling of the pandemic. Human rights have been trampled on. Violent extremists embraced and emboldened. Natural disasters fueled by climate change rage on and devastate communities. This is a frightening age, but there is still hope. In the coming weeks, we will learn the fate of this country. We will continue to resist and push back. We will take to the streets again. We will scream until our voices echo from coast to coast. This will be the turning of the tide, Space Unicorns. Together, we will always be stronger than the assholes who embrace fascism and hate. We will overcome this. We will make the world better.
Blaze on, Space Unicorns.
Fabulous news, Space Unicorns! Tananarive Due’s “Black Horror Rising” won the Best in Creative Nonfiction Ignyte Award! A huge congratulations to Tananarive!
Once again, congratulations to Christopher Caldwell, whose “Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan” was a finalist for a Best Short Story Ignyte Award, Brandon O’Brien, whose “Elegy for the Self as Villeneuve’s Beast” was a finalist for a Best in Speculative Poetry Ignyte Award, Tamara Jerée, whose “goddess in forced repose” was a Best in Speculative Poetry Ignyte Award finalist, and Uncanny Magazine Interviewer Caroline M. Yoachim, whose “The Archronology of Love” was a Best Novelette Ignyte Award finalist!
It was a fabulous ballot. Congratulations to all of the winners and finalists!
And now the contents of Uncanny Magazine Issue 37! The spectacular cover is Treetops by Julie Dillon. Our new fiction includes Ken Liu’s exploration of artificial intelligence and its possible worldviews “50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know,” Hal Y. Zhang’s story of time travel and hard choices “Proof of Existence,” Brit E.B. Hvide’s tale of future relationships between pilots and smart ships “Words We Say Instead,” Martha Wells’ ghost story of lost family and history “The Salt Witch,” Lee Mandelo’s look at love and loss “The Span of His Wrist,” and John Wiswell’s tale of sacrifice and self-discovery “The Bottomless Martyr.”
Our reprint is “Cerulean Memories” by Maurice Broaddus, originally published in The Book of the Dead.
Our provocative and compelling essays this month include “Evoking the Gothic: The House That Anxiety Built” by Meghan Ball, “Black and White and Red All Over: On the Semiotic Effect of Color Printing in Genre Fiction” by Meg Elison, “Traveling Without Moving” by Michi Trota, and “This Isn’t the End: On Becoming a Writing Parent” by K.A. Doore. This month also includes a new editorial column by Nonfiction Editor Elsa Sjunneson called “Imagining Futures: They’re Trying to Sell You A Haunted House.” Our gorgeous and evocative poetry includes the paired pieces “Mourning Becomes Jocasta” by Jane Yolen and “An Elder Resigns from the Chorus of Oedipus at Colonnus” by Peter Tacy, “Cento for Lagahoos” by Brandon O’Brien, “Making Accommodations” by Valerie Valdes, and “The Automaton Falls in Love” by Jennifer Crow. Finally, Caroline M. Yoachim interviews Ken Liu and Lee Mandelo about their stories.
The Uncanny Magazine Podcast 37A features “Proof of Existence” by Hal Y. Zhang, as read by Joy Piedmont, “Mourning Becomes Jocasta” by Jane Yolen and “An Elder Resigns from the Chorus of Oedipus at Colonnus” by Peter Tacy, as read by Erika Ensign, and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Hal Y. Zhang. The Uncanny Magazine Podcast 37B features “The Salt Witch” by Martha Wells, as read by Erika Ensign, “Making Accommodations” by Valerie Valdes, as read by Joy Piedmont, and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Martha Wells.
As always, we are deeply grateful for your support of Uncanny Magazine. Shine on, Space Unicorns!
© 2020 Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
