Welcome to our sixth issue and second winter! We’re writing this a few days before the solstice; the dark is still waxing, and we await the longest night. In this issue, we’re showing you an array of lovers to keep you company through that longest night… and, as is appropriate for weather that keeps slipping between autumn and winter, we bring you an issue full of shifting skins.
We dance between. We dance together.
Yours,
Shira and Mattie
Editrixes
This issue’s mascot is Charlotte!
Charlotte Mignonette Geraldine Henrietta (so we could call her Charlie MGH, a reference to a subway stop) came to Shira’s house from friends in New York whose schedules no longer allowed them to be home with her as much. Charlotte is very much a people cat. She greets visitors at the door, aggressively demands petting (on her terms only), and is rarely more than three feet from Shira during Shira’s workday. Her hobbies include bird surveillance, sudden dashes around the house, and attempts to eat the dog’s food. This year, she has enjoyed the poetry of Helen Marshall, Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, and Richard Siken.
(Interested in having your pets as our mascots?)
Mat Joiner’s poems and short stories have appeared in the likes of Strange Horizons, Goblin Fruit, Stone Telling, and Not One Of Us. Their poem “And Deeper Than Did Ever Plummet Sound” won the 2014 Dwarf Stars Award. They love ghosts, Green Men, and old books, and think “canalpunk” should be a subgenre. They never owned cats, but have a fox running around their head. They live in Birmingham, England.
Shira Lipkin is a writer, poet, and editor in Boston; in their spare time, they volunteer with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Their poetry and short fiction have appeared in Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, Clockwork Phoenix 4, Interfictions 2, and other marvelous places; their poem “The Library, After” won the 2012 Rhysling Award. They attend a lot of burlesque shows, but that’s not where the glitter comes from. Their cat is bigger than their dog.