Antigone Issue No. 05 | 'The Future'

ANTIGONE ‘THE FUTURE’

ISSUE NO. 05

Cover art by Adèle Hennion

Editors: Danielle Van Meter, Simoné Walt Contributing Editors: Gabrielle Estel, Meenakshi Nair Contributing Writers: Beli Green, Samantha Gamez, Tori Morrow, Gabrielle Estel Artists: Giana De Dier, Adèle Hennion, Maria Bolaños, Zakarie Bedoyan Contact us: teawithantigone@gmail.com Facebook | Instagram | Medium | Newsletter | Support Antigone

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CONTENTS

Find out more about the artist on page 42

Read

8.

Forward Thinking: 8 Science Fiction Recommendations

12.

Borrowing Books from the Future: A NetGalley Review

14.

Featured Reads Reflect

20.

Interview with Moira Marquis

28.

A Letter from the Future by Beli Green

32.

Falling in Love with the Future by Samantha Marie Gamez Create

39.

Eternal Sunshine at Dawn by Zakarie Bedoyan

40.

Tomorrow by Maria Bolaños

42.

44.

Collage Artist Adèle Hennion Collage Artist Giana De Dier Footnotes

46.

Upcoming releases Acknowledgements

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Welcome to the fifth issue of Antigone

Taking 3 months to put together an issue means we must either try to predict the future (which 2020 once and for all confirmed was not the route to take) or resign ourselves to a slower pace of thinking. I’ve loved taking the latter approach with Antigone because it allows me to take a look at the big picture and think in the long term. In the impossibly fast-paced world of the internet, this change of pace is very welcome. It’s the same thing that lies at the heart of what many of us love about literature and art.

For me, Antigone has been a lesson in being present and learning how to “wing it”. Each issue demands all my attention. Ironically, I could spare no thought for the future while working on this issue about ‘The Future’. It made me realise that all creative work requires your full attention.

Don’t let your thoughts wander off to whether what you’re making will be good or bad, what people will say, if someone will copy you, or if you’re already unwittingly copying someone else.

Your job as the artist is to focus on the job at hand. That’s all it is, really. To be fully present. Give it all your attention. I now know that the minute this issue is out in the world I will already start thinking about the next one - so I'll wait until then to think about it. Right now I should look only a few feet ahead.

Many people advise against calling yourself “an aspiring x” - writer, journalist, painter, actor, entrepreneur - and I think I finally understand why. To aspire is in itself not a bad thing; staying there indefinitely is the bad thing. It’s that initial dream that plants the idea and the desire in you in the first place. But you could stay in the initial dream forever, aspiring to greater heights from the same place you’ve always been. Aspiring is not where the work happens. e.e. cummings put it best when he wrote, “a person may decide to become an Artist for innumerable reasons of great psychological importance; but what interests us is the consequences, not the causes, of our decisions to become Artists.”

In looking forward, I also found myself looking back. The first issue of Antigone - where it all began - was about daydreaming. We talked about taking breaks to avoid burnout and how easy it is to get stuck in the doing and never giving yourself time for the dreaming, especially in a culture that so loudly values productivity and achievement. This issue acts as a counterbalance to the first: don’t get stuck in the dreaming either. Don’t be so paralysed by the prospect of the future that you lose touch with the present. So it’s my hope that, in these pages, you will find the tools you to tackle the future while still staying firmly rooted in the present.

All the best, Simoné

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ANTIGONE Magazine

On the Beach at Night Alone Walt Whitman On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, All distances of place however wide, All distances of time, all inanimate forms, All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so di!erent, or in di!erent worlds, All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes, All nations, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages, All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe, All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future, This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

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This poem is in the public domain.

Yūgure no hansen (1900–1915) by Ohara Koson.

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FORWARD THINKING

By Tori Morrow Writer, YouTuber, and Science Fiction aficionado Tori Morrow shares some of her favourite novels in the genre - for longterm fans and readers who are new to the genre alike. Find more of Tori’s writing on her website: www.torimorrow.com and get more book recommendations from her at YouTube.com/torimorrow.

-1To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

To Be Taught, If Fortunate is an excellent sci-fi novella, and one that is a great place to start, not only for beginners in the sci-fi genre, but also for readers who are long-term SF fans who may not want to dive

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into Chambers’ Wayfarer series just yet.

The novella follows a crew of four astronauts as they survey the ecology of four exoplanets that are believed to sustain human life. En route to each new planet, the crew adapts their bodies to new planetary environments through a technology known as “somaforming.”

During a routine survey mission on one of the planets, though, we learn that Earth has stopped

responding to the crew’s messages. The story unfolds through one of the crew members, Ariadne, as she documents their experience on each planet in the hope that Earth might still be listening.

In under two-hundred p a g e s , To B e Ta u g h t , I f Fortunate explores the impact (for better or worse) that humans have on an unfamiliar planet’s ecosystem, and leaves the reader wondering about the future of our world.

Follow Tori on Instagram @thatnerdtori

looked to as the leader of their small community.

The story unfolds through a series of Lauren’s journal entries where she documents the eventual decline of her community and begins questioning her faith. As Lauren tries to rebuild her life and make sense of the world, she begins to establish a new religion known as Earthseed.

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Parable of the Sower (Earthseed #1) by Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Sower is easily one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time. The post-apocalyptic subgenre of science fiction is one of my favourites, and Butler fuses those chaotic, “world-in-ruins” themes typically found in apocalyptic stories with religious undertones and a story of self discovery.

The novel takes place after the country has suffered economic and environmental collapse. We follow our main character, Lauren, who has the gift of hyper empathy, allowing her to feel the emotions of those around her deeply.

Lauren lives in a gated (and I use that word very loosely) neighbourhood where her father is a preacher and often

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Though Stories of Your Life and Others has grown in its popularity over the years, it’s still a book that I consistently recommend because, in many ways, it fueled my own love for science fiction and became an instant favourite.

Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of eight brilliant short stories that

Vintage, 2016

examine questions about God, societal norms, language, and inter-species communication that have probably never crossed your mind. Chiang handles each story perfectly whether it’s in a structurally unique way that leaves you speechless, or simply by boiling large, scientific concepts down into familial stories of love, loss, and humanity.

Each story in this collection has left a lasting impact on me, and some of my personal favourites in this collection include: Tower of Babylon, Division by Zero, and Story of Your Life.

-4Lexicon by Max Barry

To this day, Lexicon is still one of the most genre-defying and trippiest novels I have ever read, and it’s one that I recommend to almost everyone regardless of the type of sci-fi and SF sub-genres they read.

Lexicon takes place at a boarding school in Virginia, where students don’t learn the usual subjects like math and science. Instead, they’re taught the art of language.

S p e c i f i c a l l y, h o w t o u s e language as a dangerous weapon of manipulation. Once they graduate from the school,

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the students are known as “poets”.

Lexicon is told from two points of view, the first of which is a young woman named Emily, who is admitted to the school after she is approached by recruiters. In the second, we have Wil, who is pursued by strange men for unknown reasons. As the two storylines begin to collide, Lexicon becomes something akin to a sci-fi thriller/mystery novel that is unlike any other book I’ve read.

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This is a beautiful novel, one that not only fuels a sense of wonder about potential habitable planets and space exploration, but which also grapples with important topics

Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

by Temi Oh

I love this novel and its characters more than I possibly put into words.

Do You Dream of TerraTwo? follows a group of six teenagers, who, after rigorous schooling and training their entire lives, are selected for a 23-year long journey to an earth-like planet named TerraTw o . A l o n g w i t h a f e w experienced astronauts, the teenagers leave earth for their mission. But it’s clear early on they cannot escape the mental

Gallery / Saga Press, 2019

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health challenges with which they struggled nor the personal and familial challenges that impacted them at home.

This is a beautiful novel, one that not only fuels a sense of wonder about potential habitable planets and space exploration, but which also grapples with important topics such as mental health. Do You Dream of Terra-Two? can feel claustrophobic at times, because we’re watching these characters struggle so intensely in the closed-quarters of their ship, but Oh tells this story so beautifully, and I think it’s perfect for both beginners to the genre or any wellestablished sci-fi reader.

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The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth trilogy #1) by N.K. Jemisin

There’s a reason The Broken Earth trilogy consistently pops up on favourites and “Best Of” lists, and why each novel won the Hugo Award in its respective year. The trilogy is just that phenomenal.

The story begins with the first novel, The Fifth Season, which is an excellent blend of post apocalyptic and fantasy elements written in a way both structurally and in its tone - that make Jemisin a powerhouse of a writer.

The series is told in multiple POVs and takes place on a continent known as the Stillness, which is accustomed to the world ending in various ways. The first book begins when one of our main characters leaves home in search of her missing daughter.

While our main character navigates the dangers of the Stillness, we learn of the intricate hierarchy of beings who control and manipulate the Earth as a weapon.

As the stakes rise, and Jemisin takes readers to the brink of another apocalyptic event unlike anything the Stillness has seen.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Babel-17 is perfect for any reader looking for a fun, thought-provoking work of classic science fiction. Because I love reading about themes of language and linguistics in my science fiction, and can appreciate a great space opera, Babel-17 resonated with me immediately and is a novel that has stuck with me.

In Babel-17 we follow Rydra Wong, a poet and ship captain, who also has an u n p re c e d e n t e d k n a c k f o r language. Rydra is approached to crack an enemy code known as “Babel-17”, but in her re s e a rc h s h e l e a r n s t h a t Babel-17 is not a code. It’s actually a language, one that if learned - can impact one’s concept of time and their perception of the world.

I love how the foundation of the story is rooted in language, and the way Delany weaves some of the more traditional sci-fi elements and tropes into his story makes Babel-17 a fascinating read.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The Light Brigade probably isn’t the most b e g i n n e r- f r i e n d l y s c i e n c e fiction novel, but it’s worth the read for those wanting to be taken on a wild journey.

The novel is set in a world where corporates dominate everything, including soldiers.

Corporate soldiers have been fighting in an ongoing war against Mars for years. In order to quickly get to the front lines of various planets, they are broken down into light. We follow Dietz, a new soldier who - the first time they’re beamed to the front lines - begins to experience the war differently.

For Dietz, the war and reality becomes difficult to keep straight, and they struggle to sort of the mess before losing their sanity completely.

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Borrowing Books From A NetGalley Review

By Gabrielle Estel There are always gatekeepers in publishing. For better and for worse, NetGalley nudges these gates open so casual reviewers can borrow with the click of a button.

NetGalley is a free online platform for book reviewers and influencers to scroll through digital Advanced Reading Copies of new releases in return for an honest review.

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m the Future: FOR WORSE

FOR BETTER

Fewer gatekeepers can also mean a dip in

Publishing graphic novels historically comes with greater gatekeeping than traditional novels.

quality. Now, I only review books from select

They cost more to print, generally have a smaller

publishers I found through trial and error. I'm

fan base for publishers to rely upon for sales, and

scared to step out of their circle. I've noticed

arguably have a different set of hoops to jump

quality drastically changes by genre. My

through. NetGalley removes some of these

experiences borrowing fantasy and historical

hoops. Because of NetGalley, I got to read

fiction have been particularly bad. On the other

Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan

hand, my experiences borrowing translated lit,

Estrada - an amazing coming of age account set

graphic novels, and nonfiction texts have been

during South Korea's Fifth Republic. I hope our

phenomenal.

shift towards a more electronic FUTURE will

This problem could easily have been

continue making graphic novels more accessible.

avoided if NetGalley provided a starter sample of

I also use NetGalley as a shortcut for

each book. There are many books I wouldn't have

borrowing translated classics. For example, I

requested if I saw the first three pages. It is also

recently borrowed a new translation of The Nose

worth noting that well known books/authors are

and Other Stories from Columbia Press instead of

not usually available on this platform.

forking up cash to Amazon.

Overall, I’d recommend NetGalley to

Furthermore, NetGalley authors are

readers who want to try something new and

amazing! Some of my most cherished

begin a low-risk journey into Advanced Review

bookstagram memories are interviewing

Copies (known as ARCs). It’s a fun grab bag!

NetGalley authors. Singaporean author of The Girl Who Became a Goddess, Theresa Fuller, sent me the sweetest thank you email after our interview. I love meeting the brilliant minds behind the book. I still follow Hafsa Lodi (author of Modesty: A Fashion Paradox) on Instagram for her fashion advice (@hafsalodi).

Gabrielle Estel is a freelance editor, book reviewer, and international High School English teacher. She has ghostedited and helped publish two books: one work of fantasy and another of historical fiction. Those interested in her services can contact her at gabrielleannfoxestel@gmail.com. If you're lucky, you might meet her orange cat over a video call.

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“ What I am about to tell you is a fairy tale and so it is constantly repeating.

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FE AT UR ED _R EA DS

Alternate past Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes (TOR | March 2021) Veronica Schanoes masterfully sets familiar folklore and fairytales alight in this collection, burning away some parts and illuminating others.

In her stories, we find a past we know well that bleeds into a fantastical present with eerily familiar echoes (in the intriguingly titled Emma Goldman Takes Tea With The Baba Yaga, Schanoes writes

“only those who have thrown away the last vestige of their humanity put children in cages” and “a crude, knownothing leader who sailed to power on cheap racism, backed by elites who believed they could control him”). Her characters exist on the fringes of society, often blazing their way to the centre despite the odds, lending a hopeful slant to stories that are otherwise very heavy and dark.

Schanoes’ protagonists tend to blur between stories (almost all of them wear liquid eyeliner

and Doc Martens and have an endless capacity to make references to The Clash) and readers should go into the collection forewarned that there is violence, gore, substance abuse, and selfharm. Despite some weaker stories that lack focus, the stronger ones carry the collection with no effort and there are plenty of vivid, memorable tales packed into these pages.

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Alternate Future Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (TOR | January 2021)

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In only about 180 pages, Nnedi Okorafor achieves what eludes many writers today: painting a picture of a hopeful future without turning a blind eye to a painful past or ignoring the realities of the present.

Remote Control follows Sankofa, adopted daughter of Death who leaves destruction in her wake, as she comes to terms with her fate and learns how to wield her powers.

Drawing on mythology and modern technology alike, Sankofa’s is a compelling story about regeneration and transforming tragedy and loss.

And, faraway as the world might seem on the surface, her story hits close to home upon further inspection. At any rate, Sankofa teaches us the value of spending time lingering in nature and climbing trees.

She’d told them about how her garden was going and they’d all been impressed, saying that for someone who was fitted with the talent of taking life, she was also good at

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cultivating it.

Far Future Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils by David Farrier (Picador | February 2021) What Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils achieves most effectively is zooming out to show readers the big picture (or the “deep future”) and attuning us to the slow pace of the Earth’s “deep time”. In David Farrier’s own words, Footprints is his attempt to discover how we will be remembered by the very deep future”. Farrier, who teaches English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, weaves literary allusions and

∞

Treating the planet as a succession of sinks and taps, as we have, has kept us focused on the present, concealing the fact that we also inhabit this flow. Earth’s long pulse shapes the arc of our lives, but to see this poses a tremendous challenge to our everyday imaginations. For the most part, deep time is “the strange sleep,” which, according to Shelley, “wraps all in its own deep eternity”

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references throughout the text of Footprints. This, combined with his quietly poetic prose, lends the book a sense of timelessness, without compromising the integrity and clarity of the sections that deal with scientific findings.

However, making us aware of the long term damage being done to the planet is not the same as giving us hope for a better future or getting those responsible for the damage to

change their ways. One reviewer hopes against all hope that this book will somehow be preserved alongside our plastic debris so that future generations will know that “some of us wanted to try be better”.

Unfortunately, wanting to try be better saves not a planet, and Footprints doesn’t offer much beyond permitting you to give yourself a welldeserved pat on the back for “wanting to try be better” before consigning yourself and your planet to a doom that, by the end of the book, feels far more inevitable yet still terribly distant.

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“The artist believes in the future because he lives in it.”

—Modest Mussorgsky

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An Interview With

By Simoné Walt

Does the future seem bleak according to the last sci-fi film you watched? Or perhaps even the last news article you read? It doesn’t necessarily have to be.

I sat down with Dr. Moira Marquis, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of English at the University of North Carolina atChapel Hill, for a video chat about her research interests at the intersection of colonialism and ecocriticism. We talked about the importance of examining colonial legacies of the past; alternative epistemologies and ways of being in the present; and art that lights the way for the future.

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- Past Simoné Walt: Before we get to talking about the future, something I’ve been asking our contributing artists and authors for this issue is: what do you wish you knew in your early 20s? What would you tell your younger self, when you were just starting out?

Moira Marquis: If you think you’re a writer, you probably are.

Don’t be scared or let yourself feel defeated if you’re not where you want to be yet. Writing is something you can do in old age. José Saramago won the Nobel when he was 76! You’ve got time and everything you do and experience will feed your writing.

S: Could you give us a rundown of your career so far?

M: I started teaching world history in secondary schools. I started in secondary school because I didn’t really know that you could get paid to get a graduate degree. As the first woman in my family to go to college I didn’t have a lot of mentorship, so I just went to work because I thought I had to.

But world history is a very small field in the US, so I took a job teaching English. I felt underqualified so I started a Master’s in Humanities. I wound up

focusing on philosophy and literature.

When I applied to graduate school I still didn’t think I knew what I really wanted to focus on.

I felt like I was stumbling around a lot, but I recently moved and found a file of old folders containing lessons from my world history curriculum. They were all about myth, the environment, and diverse cultural ways of knowing!

Although I feel like I’ve been learning and shifting focus from history to literature… apparently there’s been quite a consistency in my thought.

S: What drew you to studying literature?

M: History as a field is very narrow. You can only look at written documents and even oral histories are slightly suspect. I like literature because, as Derrida says, literature is privileged to talk about everything. As a literary scholar, there is nothing that is out of bounds and that works well for me because I’m interested in large questions.

S: And what drew you to your particular areas of research?

M: I grew up in New York and was ashamed of being Irish. The legacies of colonialism

profoundly impacted my perception of what being Irish meant. After my mother died, I really moved away from being Irish at all. I claimed no culture, which was easy because people in the US mistake me for a lot of things: Jewish, Latina, Native American… It’s funny to me because, in Ireland, everyone assumes I’m Irish. When, I open my mouth to speak, they are usually shocked that I’m a Yank.

My attitude towards my own family’s history changed for me when, in the course of my PhD, I had to have a third language proficiency and a professor offered modern Irish. I took it because I needed the language credit, but I also felt inexplicably drawn to it at that time. Taking that course changed my understanding of who I am. Learning Irish helped me recover a part of myself that I didn’t consciously know was lost.

It helped me understand my grandmother so much more and has given me a way to be Irish that fits with who I am.

While I had been working on decolonialism before that I can’t say that I fully embraced decolonialism in the way I do now. There’s something deeply healing about recovering respect for our families and our ancestral cultures.

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- Present -

M: This is what Afrofuturism, decolonialism, and Okorafor’s Africanfuturism are all about, in my opinion. It’s not “the past” in the sense that we’re going back to uncover ways of knowing that no longer exist— that would be impossible.

What is being revalued are the ways of knowing that are still with us, and were commonly accepted in our cultures prior to colonisation, but have been made to seem superstitious, illogical, “primitive” or ignorant by colonial culture. We all know these kinds of beliefs, whether it’s the ‘witch doctor’ or faeries, are the kinds that our grandmothers pass along to us and which colonial culture teaches us to be ashamed of.

Afrofuturism and other decolonial projects rightly see these ways of knowing the

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world as sophisticated narratives that create and maintain human and ecological wellbeing. They are being lost in favour of a system of meaning that came about concurrently with racialised enslavement, biological racism, Indigenous genocides and land dispossessions as well as cashcrop, plantation agriculture, the industrial revolution and mass deforestation.

The colonial system of meaning, what I call the Enlightenment Myth, is completely bound-up with these destructive ideas. People have tried valiantly to extend human rights equally, for example, but the Enlightenment Myth remains stubbornly rooted in the foundational exclusions it facilitated. That’s part of the

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failure of Afro-pessimism in my view. While Afro-pessimist critique excoriates this system and reveals why racism keeps happening despite these attempts, most Afro-pessimist critics think that white people want to maintain this system and therefore don’t theorise what alternatives could be. As a white person who is demoralised, depressed and traumatised by living in a racist society, I will do absolutely anything to have a different future.

For me, the alternative social models and ways of knowing we find in noncolonial cultures are empowering because I look at them and think: I would love to live like that! I want to be connected to other people and animals in bonds of kinship. I

“While Afropessimism o!ers incisive critiques of historic and contemporary racism, the future it imagines is either a repetition of the past or a violent revolution. Afrofuturism, in contrast, imagines a future that breaks from colonially inherited racism by emphasising traditional and indigenous African cultures.”

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S: In your article "The Alien Within: Divergent Futures in Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon and Neill Blomkamp’s District 9” something that stood out to me was the interaction you highlighted between past and future in Lagoon--the past informing the present and the future, the need to look back in order to look forward. Can you tell us a bit more about why you think examining the legacies of colonialism is important for us today?

—Marquis, Moira. “The Alien Within: Divergent Futures in Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon and Neill Blomkamp's District 9.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 47, no. 3, 2020

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…science and technology are not valueladen—they are indi!erent to how they are used, and they can be used for ongoing destruction or the creation of degrowth, biodiversity and community.

want to foster ecological wellbeing. I’m so much happier when I see butterflies and bugs and critters and flowers.

Interestingly, Okorafor’s Twitter account is full of pictures of insects, sea life and her cat. I think she shares my desire for connection with our world.

Some people say this is romanticising and unrealistic because we already have so much ruination and infrastructure. But, that’s why Afrofuturism is so great. These narratives combine technology and contemporary settings with these alternative ways of knowing. This makes it more

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new/old ways of knowing that cultivate

difficult for people to dismiss alternative orders of knowledge as irretrievably past or a romantic or nostalgic longing. By showing other ways of knowing alongside landfills and cell phones we show how science and technology are not value-laden—they are indifferent to how they are used, and they can be used for ongoing destruction or the creation of new/old ways of knowing that cultivate degrowth, biodiversity and community. These narratives can enable looking at where we live and imagine how they could be shifted in pretty easy ways that would make a major difference. Of course, there are huge changes that need to be made, too. If we can’t imagine the small ones, though, we’ve got no hope for the larger ones.

S: What projects are you currently working on?

Hodder & Stoughton, 2014

M: I’m working on so much writing… I’m editing a book with my husband on books for imprisoned people programs in the US. We’ve been involved

with several prison books programs for many years, and it’s a fun project because I get to connect to old friends. I have several articles under review and a couple more in the draft stage.

The big project that I need to make time for is my book, Mythic Ecologies. I keep coming up with articles and it’s so much easier to focus on short-term projects, but I really want to make time for that in the coming months. The book argues for a shift in colloquial usage, where myth is understood as either ideology or foundational, sacred stories, as well as, in literary studies, as synonymous with archetypes. I argue that these characterisations are the result of the Enlightenment which sought to elevate itself above all competing orders of knowledge by classifying them as distortions and projecting itself as a disinterested and objective observation of Nature. The ramifications of this legacy mean that any alternative order of knowledge presented as a solution to contemporary issues is labelled as anachronistic, romanticising, pretend, or already known through the universal knowledge of colonially inherited Enlightenment culture. I hope this work will further validate the creative works by artists of all kinds who

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present alternate orders of knowledge as viable ways of living now. It is very easy to lose hope, unfortunately. I see it all the time in the US, especially with young people. I am grateful for the artists who present pictures of what we can be. I want Mythic Ecologies to show that these works need to be taken seriously and not read as pretend.

S: I'm also really grateful for those works. In the face of something as dire as climate change or a global pandemic, literature and art can kind of seem like a luxury. But giving us hope for the future--that

seems like a pretty essential thing! What are some of your favourite recent or current reads (or films that you've watched) that achieve this?

M: Wolfwalkers by the Cartoon Salon, an Irish animation studio is amazing. I love their films and Wolfwalkers is a great film for depicting how to build coalitions and decolonise. It’s also so essential because reintroducing predators to Ireland and throughout the world is a major ecological goal.

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe is an amazing book as is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall

Kimmerer. Both offer compelling and practical ways we can decolonise in Australia and North America, respectively, right now.

I also loved the series Lovecraft Country. It’s a fantastic Afrofuturist narrative of how African American people can reclaim their ancestral knowledge, despite having it stolen through enslavement.

For novel lovers, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a tour de force.

She’s brilliant and the novel is such a joy to read.

I am grateful for the artists

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who present pictures of what we can be.

Tor Books, 2006

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- Future S: You mentioned earlier that you felt like you were stumbling around a lot back when you were studying, but actually found a sort of golden thread in your thinking. With the benefit of hindsight, do you have any advice for students who are at a point where they

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have to make a big decision in their careers?

M: I think I just tend to gravitate towards things that feel right for me, and I don’t really overthink it. And honestly, I don’t think there’s ever really going to be a negative consequence to learning about something

[laughs] And I think a lot of people just don’t know what’s going on (in academics).

S: For sure, I was like, what!?

You can get paid to go to grad school in the US? M: Yeah! The UK offers it as well.

I see a lot of tweets about

“…take time. Life is long!”

funded PhD programs in Northern Europe, like Scandinavia. In Ireland, there are several throughout the country too. They’ll usually advertise them. They’re quite competitive, but it’s a great opportunity I think. I would not recommend going to grad school if you’re going to have to pay for it. There are funded Masters programs too, although I do think they’re fewer and farther between.

inhabit to better ones. My greatest hope is that enough people begin talking in these ways to others so that we can build a critical mass of understanding around decolonisation and recoup our cultural inheritances. It’s important that decolonisation becomes mainstream. We need people to be comfortable with decolonisation and believe that it’s realisable now.

A lot of PhD programs now are “terminal” PhD programs, so that means you can go in with an undergraduate degree. They do not give you a Master’s in and of itself. When you’re done you have the doctorate. There’s a lot of people who have a Master’s already when they go into PhD programs already, and I do think it helps because it gives you more time. They’re really fast!

Like, you have to go in and know essentially what you’re doing right away and that’s challenging because I think there’s so much to think about and so much to figure out. I see a lot of people who go right from undergrad into PhD work get stuck conceptually.

Once there’s a critical mass of people in a place, then comes the fun part of decolonizing places. There are many things we can do: curate and teach real history, revitalise streams and rivers through restoration ecology, transitioning foodways to traditional ones, learn native languages and stories. All these acts will work to build a future other than the one colonialism wants.

S: And you also have an article under review in Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism on The Overstory by Richard Powers.

I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on that novel!

M: So, people say the novel cultivates an appreciation for trees. But I think that’s a very S: What projects do you hope minor kind of intervention and to work on in the future? What what people walk away from the are your hopes & dreams for novel feeling is a kind of sense of the future? fatalism that, you know, people aren’t compatible with healthy I plan to keep working to shift the environments and that human life colonially inherited cultures we is destined to die out if the So, you know, take time.

Life is long!

25

planet is going to survive—which is awful! [laughs] It’s also very colonial, and so in this article, I argue that Powers’ inability to represent a future that isn’t an awful post-apocalyptic future is because he is only relying on this colonial narrative, which the realist novel is integral in establishing and maintaining. He doesn’t think anything else is realistic. He doesn’t think it’s believable. And I don’t think he knows very much about native ways of knowing and being. In the US there are many, many native people that are still practising really amazing ways of knowing and being in the world that can inspire cultural change.

So in the article, I’m saying that

centring native knowledges can offer a way out of the anthropocentrism that often leads to fatalism in environmental narratives. We need to abandon this kind of narrative and stop celebrating what Powers is doing because it’s just really too negative.

W.W. Norton & Company, 2019

26

S: It’s pretty depressing. And there’s kind of a glaring omission in the book--it has this huge cast of characters from all across the U.S., but there isn’t one Native American character.

M: Yeah, there’s no Native American characters except at the very, very end these native characters show up—they don’t have names, they hardly say anything, and they kind of silently help this white guy make an art installation in the woods.

It’s like: what’s going on? [laughs] They’re depicted as “wise” but in this very abstract, kind of inaccessible way, right?

S: So it’s not a realistic option, according to Powers.

M: Yeah, but in the Native stories I detail in the article, trees are the central characters, not people!

S: It is easy to fall into that kind of fatalism or at the very least get overwhelmed by 'climate anxiety' and uncertainty about the future. What are some things that give you hope when it comes to the future of the planet? What would you say to young people who are feeling hopeless?

M: The amazing thing about our current predicament is that (some) people have created it.

Climate change and species loss is not an act of God or a Law of Nature. It is not inevitable—in fact, most people in the history

of the world have cultivated ecological wellbeing in their environments. Climate change and the sixth extinction is the unintentional result of one, humanly created way of knowing.

That gives me hope. The situation is dire but, because people created this problem, it can be solved by people. In fact, we have many solutions in the form of millennia of inherited knowledge from our ancestors.

Colonial culture has told us that knowledge is fantastical—not connected to reality—but, climate change and the sixth extinction reveal that it’s actually colonial culture that is disconnected from reality. It’s literally destroying the real in the pursuit of a fantasy of limitlessness. Traditional knowledge can help us see how we can do everything differently, by returning to ways of knowing that resonate as meaningful and enable people to live without destroying life. This is challenging for people with long, settler-colonial roots. However, those folks are also particularly great candidates for naturalising to place, as Robin Wall Kimmerer says.

If you happen to write that book about trees, you can let Moira know on Twitter @moira_marquis. You can find out more about her work on her website: moira.web.unc.edu

∞

Artwork by Adèle Hennion (find out more on page 42)

27

Letter From The

FUTURE

By Beli Green Ten years ago, I was turning twenty. I was both a child and an adult; terrified of never succeeding in becoming the latter, without being fully the former anymore either. At twenty, I was feeling both invincible and already defeated.

I wanted to conquer the world, but felt I was already running out of time to do so.

28

Twenty is an odd age: we are old enough

The Fear Of Missing Out (or FOMO) is a

to have faced challenges and experienced

feeling that others are experiencing better things

trauma, but young enough to feel that the world

and living fuller lives than you are, and that on

belongs to us. Despite my best efforts, I’ve always

some level you are missing out on some

harboured an idea that I was meant to do

fundamental aspect of life. It usually damages

something, as well as an all-devouring

self-esteem and involves a certain envy

dread that I was running out of time to do so. At twenty, I felt day count and live to the

did

this

unshakable sense of

a marketing strategist.

the other matter of the constant dread of

gained more currency

itself is not new, it has

running out of time.

urgency come from? I’ve had time to ask myself that in the last months while contemplating how to celebrate my

in the last few years because FOMO is exacerbated by social media.

“

Where

1996 by Dr Dan Herman, Though the feeling

Or else what

someone fail at life?

The term itself was coined in

And then there was

fullest. I had to. Or else.

fail at… life? Can

of life seems more complete.

“

that I needed to make each

exactly? Was I afraid to

towards people whose experience

We live in a hyperdocumented society in which social media allows us to constantly see

third decade during national lockdown. So far I

what other people are up to. This can lead to an

have narrowed it down to two things: fear of

overwhelming awareness of social expectations

missing out and ageism.

and make us feel inadequate in comparison. And

First let’s address the all-encompassing feeling that I needed to do something that counted, something that mattered, something remarkable. I partly blame this on my love for adventure novels and the unreasonable expectations of what life could be that these novels gave me.

it is a difficult feeling to escape when scrolling down our social media feeds. For the longest time, I know I fell prey to it. I sometimes still do. I felt that what I was doing was not as good, not as interesting as what others were doing. My daily life often felt subpar to what I perceived life was supposed to be.

29

One of the ways I found to work around it

presented as frail, dependent, and incapable of

was to simply avoid social media. No more

change. Society celebrates youth and looks down

Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat - no

on old age. Likewise, beauty standards present

network whose goal it is to document my life. It

ageing as something shameful that should be

took time and effort to stop wondering what

hidden under hair dyes and combated with

other people were doing or to wonder what they

creams and serums.

would think of what I was doing.

Though wanting to live life to the fullest is

And then there was the other matter of

a good thing, I often have to remind myself that I

the constant dread of running out of time. This is

should first and foremost strive to enjoy the time I

something I still struggle with today. It comes

have by living in the present rather than

from ageism. According to the World Health

constantly thinking ahead, picturing what comes

Organization, “Ageism is the stereotyping and

next, before having even lived the now. It’s a

discrimination against individuals or groups on

process of letting go of the idea that life is short

the basis of their age. Ageism can take many

and that only the first half really matters. Success

for ms, including prejudicial attitudes,

isn’t limited to the first four decades of one’s

discriminatory practices, or institutional policies

existence and ageing should not equate going to

and practices that perpetuate stereotypical

waste.

beliefs.”*

In a surprising turn of events, a lot of

It might sound weird to claim to suffer

those reflections took shape during lockdown

from it while being so young, but ageism doesn’t

when I realised that for me, being deprived of the

only affect old people. For a very simple reason:

option to go out and meet people and travel and

we are all going to be old someday, but society

go on adventures was actually a relief. It gave me

doesn’t seem to like old people.* Writer and

permission to stay at home and only do what I

activist Ashton Applewhite explains that ageism,

wanted to. I suddenly didn’t feel guilty for not

like all discriminations, is a human-made concept

constantly doing something. Don’t get me wrong:

that hurts society at large.* Old people are

I love going out with my friends, but lockdown

“

"ough wanting to live life to the fullest is a good thing, I often have to remind myself that I

should first and foremost strive to enjoy the time I have by living in the present rather than constantly thinking lived the now.

30

“

ahead, picturing what comes next, before having even

gave me the opportunity to reflect on why I

so are all the other chapters. There is no

always felt like I needed to be out, what made me

requirement to meet in order to turn thirty, so

feel like I had to be seen having fun for the fun to

stop focusing on who you think you have to

be real. In that regard, I know I am one of a very

become and actually start thinking about who you

small number of lucky people who didn’t suffer

want to become and why. And it’s fine if it

from the social restrictions brought by lockdown.

changes. You’re probably terrified at the idea of

So, if I could write a letter to the person I was ten years ago, this is what I would say” enjoy the small things that life throws your way and stop looking for the one great big moment when “your life will truly begin”. Because it will never come; you are already living it. Remember that no one else is you and that only you can fully appreciate the way you live your life. Be yourself and accept who you are. It’s okay if you’re not special. It’s okay if you never do anything remarkable. You do not actually need to live your entire life wondering what legacy you will leave

choosing a path for your future, but let me tell you a little secret: it’s okay if you get it wrong.

Several times. They aren’t failures, they are adventures. Veni, Vidi, who cares if youVici? You had had experiences and that’s all that matters.

There is not one “right” way to live your life, so don’t be afraid to try different things. Remember that what matters isn't the result but what you gained along the way, be it wealth, knowledge or just fond memories. As Felix Phillips reflected on his life after his Tempest in Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood:

after you die. Start by actually living each day in a

"His life has had this one good result,

way that makes you feel good. Ask yourself what

however ephemeral that result may prove

social media gives you and do not feel obligated

to be. But everything is ephemeral, he

to contribute to it solely because that’s what other

reminds himself. All gorgeous palaces, all

people do. Your time is yours and you should

cloud-capped towers. Who should know

spend it doing what you like, not what you think

that better than he?”

other people will find cool.

To those of you who are turning twenty: know that this is a unique chapter of your life, but

And to all of us, I wish us to be happy. Not rich, not successful, not remarkable, just happy.

∞ 31

Falling in Love with the Future The future and I have had a rocky

eyesight and a desperate urge to fit in (add to

relationship. It shouldn’t come as much of a

that mix being the new girl ten different times in

surprise since we’ve been dealing with each other

ten different schools.) So ideas about who I could

for as long as I can remember, and anything that

be habitually drew me into daydreams. In them,

old must be a little worn. My mom always says

future me had no concerns about money,

that the younger you start loving someone, the

independence, or even confidence. Unfortunately

more you go through the aches and pains of

this was no feminist statement of strength and

growing with each other. It’s a solid thought on

self-love. No. Younger me imagined the future as

relationships and I think it fits here, even if my

some big romantic plot and I’d encountered no

partner is that slippery concept of tomorrow.

stories to prove otherwise. From the moment I

When I was younger, it was infatuation at its best. The future offered me only sweet nothings--countless ideas about how the next day would be better than the one before. Although, in all honesty, it took very little to convince me that good things were just around the corner. By the time I started seriously considering the future, the

32

By Samantha Marie Gamez

saw Danny Zuko fall in love with a revamped Sandy and I read how a teen girl could make a vampire with big hair swoon, the future was singular and it was solely composed of being somebody to somebody. Tomorrow I would fall in love and nothing else would matter. If not tomorrow, then the day after.

world had already handed me a nomadic lifestyle,

Needless to say, imagining a future love

and a double dose of adversity. The kind that

affair did not make it my reality. Obsessing over

comes with being a brown-skinned girl with poor

stolen glances and hunting for hidden meanings

is fine and dandy in novels, but it leads to little

early trappings of adulthood and the idea that

action on the ground. John Green could have

tomorrow was another day of them made me

very well been talking about me when he wrote:

anxious. If I could, I would have paused everything so I could have a chance to figure out the next thing to do. To figure out how to be a good person when I wasn’t even sure I knew who

“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”

I was. How to take care of myself when even eating felt like a trial. How to be happy when love suddenly seemed so hard. My affair with the future had hit an all-time low. I hated how fast tomorrow would come and daydreams were more like nightmares-- of loss, of failure, of sadness and anger.

I didn’t want to ever think about tomorrow at that point. If I could, I would bury my head so

Thankfully, or luckily, AP courses and extracurriculars made it virtually impossible for me to pine all through high school, and I somehow managed my way to adulthood.

University life was like a cold shower. The intrepid nomad I thought I was had decided to try college abroad (it seemed only logical: to fall in love with a swoon-worthy European man, I needed to be in the vicinity of one). That decision made the future different. Older and more frightening. Lying awake in a foreign room in a foreign land, I couldn’t conjure up the same delicious dreams of destiny. Being apart from my family, having to actually take care of myself…

Everything about the present was overwhelming.

As fate would have it, I did fall in love rather quickly, the way eager girls are apt to do, but that turned out to hardly be the stuff of fairy

The Girl by the Window (1893) by Edvard Munch

tales. In fact, it was quite the caricature, and it was then that I really started to hate the future. Those

33

deep under my pillows and stay until time stopped.

Like anyone after lashing out, I realised that I may have been a bit unfair towards the

It is probably unnecessary to tell you that time did not stop for me. Instead, the days rolled past and the problems stayed the same. Pinterest quotes and New York Times best-selling memoirs warned me about the struggles of adulthood and advised that you just carry on. I doubted that.

There must be some big epiphany, some grand moment of enlightenment that would get me out of the woods. I idealised a perfect antidote the

future. I apologised and let myself see it honestly.

Possibilities wordlessly blinked at me like a clear night sky and they seemed to be countless the more I stared. My blood no longer rushed furiously in my ears and my eyes finally adjusted to the contradiction of darkness and brilliance.

Then I could focus on patterns, constellations, of what my life could be. I found my favourites, even made some, and in them, I found peace.

same way I once idealised the future.

I almost lost myself in gorging on the

But the truth was much softer. The truth taught me to take care of myself. From dragging myself to eat when anxiety wanted to keep me in bed to saying goodbye to a long dead romance. I saw and believed that every small step today paves the way for my journey tomorrow.

“

fantasies and then I almost lost myself in the horror of tomorrow. I used to put so much on the idea of tomorrow that I couldn’t fall asleep. But now I can sleep soundly, knowing I’ve built and will keep building my future and will keep building and whatever it brings will be okay.

Possibilities wordlessly blinked at me like a clear night sky and they seemed to be countless the more I stared. My blood no longer rushed furiously in my ears and my eyes finally adjusted to the contradiction of darkness and brilliance. "en I could focus on patterns,

34

“

constellations, of what my

∞

Aspiration Adah Isaacs Menken

Poor, impious Soul! that fixes its high hopes In the dim distance, on a throne of clouds, And from the morning's mist would make the ropes To draw it up amid acclaim of crowds— Beware! That soaring path is lined with shrouds; And he who braves it, though of sturdy breath, May meet, half way, the avalanche and death!

O poor young Soul!—whose year-devouring glance Fixes in ecstasy upon a star, Whose feverish brilliance looks a part of earth, Yet quivers where the feet of angels are, And seems the future crown in realms afar— Beware! A spark thou art, and dost but see Thine own reflection in Eternity.

This poem is in the public domain.

35

YOU DON TO BE A G ARTIST 36

N’T HAVE GREAT You don’t even have to be a good one. It’s the nature of creative work that you have to take a leap into the dark and hope for the best. All your attention needs to be on taking that leap—look too far into the future and you’re bound to stumble.

If your thoughts are occupied with how great your work might be (or might not be) and what people will think, you smother the idea before it even has a chance to grow.

That little seedling of an idea does possibly contain all the potential to be something amazing, but the moment you cast on it the shadow of the need to be great , it shrivels up and dies. Give it time to grow. Give it light. Take it step by step. And the first step to being a good artist is letting yourself be a bad artist.

37

Sunlit Wall Under a Tree (ca. 1913) by John Singer

38

Eternal Sunshine at Dawn Zakarie Bedoyan I wake up late in the early morning Probably after the sun has set My mornings filled with darkness Faithful mornings filled with nothingness I am labelled by my name In truth I should be labeled for the things I have done in vain The entire Soviet Union Along with the occupied West Europe in the centre And not a single place For me To be Displacing myself From one place to the next Most of my life I’ve been running away From being in the form of a human being The natural I can’t escape If only this poem would allow me to shape a name Blissful hands will weave the way Werther’s sorrows will reveal my pain Kafka’s madness will explain my claim Homer’s ignorance is just the same Bukowski and his women Le Carré and his games And I am just the same

Zakarie Bedoyan lives in Lebanon and is currently an English Literature student at NDU. Exploring the personal and the political, the looming future and the treadmill of the present, he seeks to craft complex ideas into simple words in his work.

Tomorrow is a Long Way Back Maria Bolaños

After the one who reached the sky-world, from Ifugao

Follow your dog into the forest. Walk where the trees grow gnarled and wild, misted thickly with ancient coolness. No one remembers the last breath that warmed this place. The dog knows the way.

The tree trunks knot themselves around you as you venture in, lattices for the weaving vine and creeping moss. Sunlight dapples softly, then sparsely, then snuffs out altogether. You begin to lose your sense of time, in this quiet room in the heart of the earth. This is incidental, and this is fine.

You shed your time like old skin with every exhale. Create yourself with every inhale. Mark your passage with footprints dropped like grains of sand in the glass.

Keep walking, you will find it.

The city shines as if made of sky. Its lights, so many mirrors waiting.

“This piece was inspired by a Philippine folktale, of a man who visited the afterlife, called the SkyWorld. The poem depicts the journey to an unknown sky-world like an unknown future, where time and travel defy direction and are not linear, and the best way to go forward is to go back.”

Maria Bolaños is a Filipina-American poet and book reviewer. Her writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Marías at Sampaguitas, Chopsticks Alley Pinoy, and Touchstone Literary Magazine, among other places. You can follow her work on instagram @mariabeewrites.

40

The New World by Adèle Hennion

41

Adèle Hennion Adèle is a French architect and digital collage artist who draws inspiration from her city. Her work reveals how both architecture and collage create landscapes, spaces, and atmospheres. Her love for surrealism shines through in her pieces’ exploration of dreams and freedom of thought.

Avant Demain - La Vieille Bourse

42

Past: What do you wish you knew in your 20s?

I wish I knew exactly what I'm living right now. I couldn't imagine a more fulfilling experience than creating new pieces every week and expressing myself this way. I would tell my younger self: express yourself, don't be afraid, go for it!

Present: What are you currently reading? What artistic project/s are you currently working on?

I'm actually reading Dans les Forêts de Siberie by Sylvain Tesson, which is about a man who stays in the forest for several months to be alone and think about his life. I really like how he writes and talks about the landscapes and the peacefulness of being alone. I'm

Get Up Here

currently working on a series of collages about my hometown that I love and miss. Because of the virus, we cannot explore it the same way we did one year ago.

Future: What projects do you hope to work on in the future?

What are your hopes & dreams for the future?

I'm starting new collaborations with other artists and a photographer from my hometown. I hope this will continue, and I will have more collaborations because it's very stimulating. I hope that one day everyone could find their voice and their way to express themselves because the world would be more colourful and educating if everyone did.

You can find Adèle on Instagram @flashiflash

Meet the Concrete Jungle

43

Giana De Dier Past: What do you wish you knew in your 20s?

I wish I trusted myself more and didn't give into others' expectations of who I should be or what I should be doing. Part of me felt there was a specific blueprint to follow that would guarantee a certain level of success.

That idea of success also had a lot to do with other’s beliefs and definitions which are not necessarily

44

Through imagery from across the African diaspora,

accurate. There was another part that felt that this was

Giana examines heritage and memory using different

not what I should be doing. Advice I would give my

mediums in her work. She reframes old beliefs and

younger self when starting out and for life in general is

reimagines her Caribbean ancestry in pieces that are

to pay attention to how things make me feel. Fear

by turns striking and subtle, sombre and joyful.

nothing and work to please nobody but myself.

Present:

Future:

What are you currently reading? What artistic

What projects do you hope to work on in the future?

project/s are you currently working on?

What are your hopes & dreams for the future?

Currently, I’m reading a lot of art business books. Much

Projects: I'm looking forward to having my work in

of the information found in these books is not taught in

publications. Not sure why but I really enjoy seeing my

art school in Panama. We were taught that we have

work in print. Hopes and dreams: clarity and more

two paths to choose from: either as a working artist

actions that not only benefit the one but the many.

hopefully represented by a gallery or as an educator.

Students aren’t given the tools to build a sustainable art

You can follow Giana on Instagram

career. I also just started reading “Intimations”, a

@gianadedierstudio and find out more about her work at www.gianadedierstudio.com

collection of six essays by Zadie Smith.

As for art, I’m slowly developing a new body of work, but it’s still in its initial stages.

45

Coming Soon

Earthly Bodies by Susan Earlam 22 April 2021 It is 2058. Rebecca, a widow, receives an invitation to leave Earth and start over, but nature has evolved and is tagging along for the ride.

Earthly bodies is a dystopian eco-horror story that spans the ages, where strangers reveal their contribution to an extraordinary act of survival.

Trailer

46

3 Questions with Susan Earlam, author of Earthly Bodies Past:

through a dystopian lens. Because of the book

What do you wish you knew in your 20s?

publication, my attention span is short. So I'm reading

In my early twenties, I'd just finished a degree in Fine

lots of short stories that would come under the banner

Art at Kingston University. I learnt all about subjectivity

of horror, ghost, and speculative. These also serve as

versus objectivity here. I’d been top of the class in grade

research since I'm about to start a horror short story

school and college, so when I reached university I think

course from Comma Press. I'm excited to see what

I expected more of the same. Looking back, I wish I'd

ideas come out of it.

pushed myself harder creatively. But the tutors had their favourites, and I wasn't one of them. I became

Future:

rather disenchanted with the art world at this stage. I

What projects do you hope to work on in the future?

explored life away from my parents. I was so young! I

What are your hopes & dreams for the future?

think mature students have a better investment of the

My future projects consist of redrafting a second novel.

self when choosing a course because they are choosing

I will get to this once Earthly Bodies is out in the world.

it for different reasons. I digress, but one of the most

I want to get back into writing shorter fiction as the joy

exciting parts of the course was my dissertation on

in finishing cannot be underestimated. Any writer will

body image and dysmorphia represented in the arts. A

tell you they want people to read and enjoy their work.

huge topic, one that I didn't get a lot of support with.

That is exactly the same for me. I have also got some

What I'm trying to say here, in a very wordy way, is

ideas for screenplays and might delve into this side of

that I would tell myself that I AM the one whom I

creation or perhaps look for collaborators to team up

should be looking to please creatively. Others'

with because I can't do everything myself... On a more

understanding of what I'm doing and what my

personal note, I hope that life will become more settled

intentions are can come later - if at all - or when they

again, but not back to the way it was. I think we can

catch up. Keep going, keep looking at the world with

all agree that wasn't working. Something new and

curiosity, keep reading widely. This is one of the

different. I think we will get there. We’re seeing old

reasons I love the female surrealists like Leonara

systems being forced out. Those system don’t want to

Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Kati Horna - no

go and they want to hold onto what power they have,

explanations; they just create work and let others take

in any way they can, for fear of losing their money,

from it what they will.

power, and status. We’re also seeing the other side of that coin: their fear of people having autonomy over

Present:

their own lives.

What are you currently reading? What projects are you currently working on?

The biggest current project is the publication of my

You can find Susan on Instagram and Twitter

debut novel Earthly Bodies. It is an eco-horror set in the

@susanearlam

future, but also looks at creativity and metamorphosis

47

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48

Footnotes

Editors: Danielle Van Meter, Simoné Walt Contributing Editors: Gabrielle Estel, Meenakshi Nair Contributing Writers: Beli Green, Samantha Gamez, Tori Morrow, Gabrielle Estel Artists: Giana De Dier, Adèle Hennion, Maria Bolaños, Zakarie Bedoyan Contact us: teawithantigone@gmail.com

Some images and graphics courtesy of Rawpixel and Unsplash licensed under Creative Commons unless stated otherwise. Written pieces and artwork by contributors and featured artists may not be reproduced without the permission of the authors and artists.

Facebook | Instagram | Medium | Newsletter | Support Antigone Copyright @Simoné Walt 2020