Editor’s Note.
Welcome to issue 2 of The Birdseed!
Reading for issue 2, I was struck by how each piece that comes across my inbox creates its own world, no matter how tiny the piece or small the word count. For the minutes (or seconds!) in which I read a new piece, I am wrapped up in someone else’s small world. I am transported to forests or seascapes or futures or pasts, or maybe to new loves or old loves or fantasies or regrets. The honesty and vivacity with which each piece presents its vision of the world made me think of microclimates, of weather coming and going, and of the way we all–as we must–prevail through the cycle of rain and sun and snow, wind and mist and drought.
As befitting the Northern hemisphere’s turn towards fall and the longer nights of winter, these pieces trend slightly more toward the dark and contemplative. But they also turn to the light, to the magic and fantastic in the every day.
Take your time with these pieces–look for the magic these 31 authors conjure. And then look for the magic in your own microclimate.
Happy, happy reading.
– Kourtney Jai
Drought
We start with drought–with the idea of absence, but also with the glimmer of something on the horizon. Maybe it’s rain. Or maybe it’s a mirage.
Thunder
Think lightning and dark nights and unbridled power and the thrill of being caught under a churning sky
Wind
Cozy up against our seven wind pieces. These pieces are about turbulence and change and rises and falls, about never settling, and about scattering what’s in your wake
Mist
Mist: skin-kissing veil hovering silk-smooth over a moonlit night, or smothering, swirling cover for things that don’t quite want to be seen
Snow
The blinding panic of a blizzard, the snowy blanket of memory, and the breath-slowing quiet of a winter midnight: find yourself knee-deep in our six snow pieces
Sun
We end with new light breaking upon the horizon. We end with warmth.
The Birdseed 