“The writers’ stories stretch across continents and root themselves within the most intimate moments of severance.”

“The pieces collected here offer not answers, but forms of attention.”

“This anthology set out to bring forth the nuanced complexities and beauty of stories that resist category and make no apology for bleeding beyond the lines.”

“Populated with ghosts and their hunger, this anthology is ultimately an invitation, an act of speculation.”

“I see the work in this anthology as unforeseen dispatches from inside the collapsing history of imperial and colonial forces.”

For this issue, we are examining the building blocks that make up our society and considering how to dismantle them so that we might create anew.

“Prayer appeared before me once I reminded myself of my own poetry, which is the most authentic form of prayer I know.”

“My goal was to create space for those most vulnerable and amplify the voices of those on the fringes of the video game community.”

“This anthology is an unfinished map of queer possibility.”

“No ending—individual or collective—comes without transformation.”

For this issue, we want to know what it means to take action amid the everyday crises that we are living through, and what that action can look like: gathering our resources, our people, our time.

What do rivers remember and where do they invite us? I invite you to take your time with the rivers, questions, and longings in this issue.

When I curated this anthology, I was fixated on the idea of “change”: What it means, what it holds, and what it can be.

Whenever I can’t stop thinking about something, I know I should write about it.

With every subsequent phase of this process undergone, a new layer of sinew, muscle, and flesh was added to the skeleton of my dream.