Letter From the Editor

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

When I began this magazine in 2019, I had no way of knowing what the world would look like upon the release of Issue #2. How could I have predicted that in only a year, I’d be on my sixth month of quarantine, after having postponed my college graduation due to a worldwide pandemic that a large percentage of my country refuses to even acknowledge? How could I have known that I’d be seeing photos of the West Coast so red with smoke that they looked like they were taken on Mars? As an author of dystopian novels, I have to say that the plot of 2020 feels a little heavy handed. I mean, the rise of a new American dictatorship and murder hornets? Isn’t that kind of overkill? But here’s something else I hadn’t predicted: That in just a year, I’d go from creating this magazine by myself in my campus computer lab to having an entire staff of amazing, creative, passionate people making it with me. When I put out a call for staff members, I wasn’t sure if anyone would apply. I ended up getting applications from people of all ages, from all over the world. Optopia has become something bigger than me, and I couldn’t be more excited to see where we go from here. There have been a lot of setbacks to this second issue (see: previously mentioned pandemic, wildfires, etc.) but I have so much hope for the future. And that’s what solarpunk is all about, isn’t it? The era we’re living in may seem (almost comically) dystopian, but I haven’t given up hope. I won’t give up hope on our world until the very last human settlement in the post-nuclear wasteland is finally overtaken by mutated murder hornets. So for the rest of you who aren’t ready to give up either, please enjoy this collection of stories, thoughts, and ideas about the future. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re determined to get there. r - Rosie Albrecht

op•to•pi•a (noun): A place in between a utopia and a dystopia. Not a perfect world, but an achievable one—the best possible world we can create given the circumstances.

OPTOPIA STAFF

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Rosie Albrecht

DEPUTY EDITORS: Jeremy Baker, Meira Datiya, Rifka Handelman, X379496

STAFF EDITORS: Jeremy Baker, Jewel Jackson, Clint Pereira, Krystal Washington, Stowell Waters, X379496

STAFF ARTISTS/WRITERS: Jack Adebisi, Meira Datiya, Jewel Jackson, David Ntephe, Al Wilson

LAYOUT DIRECTOR: Rifka Handelman

WEB DESIGNER: John Moriarty