Warning: Hyperbole follows. But it’s well-merited, so ...

This issue marks two full years since the return of Penumbric! We are thriving, and it’s thanks to all of you—contributors and readers—that we’re doing more than just paddling along here in this ocean of magazines and other publications. Looking back at April 2k4, one of the last issues before our 15-year hiatus, I can see what I thought back then was a full and vibrant magazine (with six poetry and prose pieces and three artistic works) was nothing compared to today’s publication (which, in this special issue, has a total of 24 works). We receive about 150 submissions a month when all our submission windows are open at once, and we’re running six to nine issues between an acceptance and publication. When we restarted in June 2k20 I was worried we wouldn’t get enough submissions lol. (And also that cutting back on my proofreading work would mean I had less to read.)

The world around us may be falling apart (as I write this, pundits on television are talking like the next ten years are a cliff’s-edge walk skirting nuclear, viral, and environmental destruction, with at least some of our fellow humans scheming to push us off the edge, and I’m inclined to agree), but at the very least I have all of you wonderful people and the work you send me to read, and I’m about as happy as an anxiety-ridden, OCD-suffering malcontent can be. I hate to think what this world would be like without you all. So again, thank you!

This issue we have our annual-ish special prose and art issue, with extra helpings of contributors’ works taking us into strange and experimental territory—which we do a bit of every issue, but this time ... well, after staring deeply into our cover art by Dagny Sellorin (My Friends #1), start off with Lisa Towles’ incredible “Ruba’s Rift” and see if you don’t agree (and, although we don’t commission art to go with stories, nor the other way round, Carl Scharwath’s girl in tree feels like it has a special connection to that tale). Sometimes this journey is into the strange and horrifying (Zandra Renwick’s “Unknown Canadian Artist,” Elby Rogers’ Shaft Girl) and sometimes into the fairy tale-like and fantastic (“Wolf Girl” by Christina Sng, “Umbrella” by Anne Carly Abad, “Shaman’s Moon” by Dean Schreck). Some works are very far away, as in Matias Travieso-Diaz’s “Black Hole” and Denny E. Marshall’s Cargo Drop, and sometimes very close to home, as in “The Remembrance Engine” by Elad Haber and “The Teaseller” by B. B. Garin, or even IN the home (“Poppy’s Poppy” by Douglas Gwilym). We can live in a liminal space just this side of the future (Aaron Emmel’s “The Park of Future Heroes”; toeken’s Ouroborus Commute 2174) or the mythic (“Leave the Myths, Leave Home” by Lynne Sargent, I Fly on Wings of Onyx Ink by Shikhar Dixit) or on the other side of life (“Workshop Without End, Amen” by Toni Arturo, “Let Me Sleep When I Die” by Wendy Nikel). And some places just don’t fit into categories, neat or otherwise—see beckoning in the light by Ritiksha Sharma, “The Hook” by Adele Gardner, Failed frequency by Novyl Saeed, “Genius Loci” by Deborah L. Davitt.

No issue would be complete without Jesper Nordqvist’s Mondo Mecho—although we are, sadly, nearing the end of its run. (We’re looking for graphic narratives to serialize, BTW ...)

I look forward to hopefully meeting all of our contributors at some point, pundits’ prophecies notwithstanding, and thanking you all personally. We are sharing an incredible journey. Again, thank you!

Jeff Georgeson
Managing Editor
Penumbric