Hello, readers.
We hope this letter finds you well healthy pandemic fine. It’s been a rough few months, and we appreciate that you’re here with us. We opened submissions for Issue 3 over the summer, thinking surely things would be a little less tumultuous by now. Whether this belief was born from naivety or optimism or denial, we’re unsure—but we’re happy to have a respite with quip.
When we read for an issue, we tend to notice a theme across submissions. We don’t request themed submissions per se, but there always seems to be a collective consciousness amongst our submitters. In a previous life at a previous magazine where we both worked, the inadvertent submission theme was—somehow—sad, half-hearted blow jobs. At quip, we’ve had a sentient fowl round and a President Turd round.
However, perhaps influenced by the unpredictability and disorder of our current atmosphere, the submissions for Issue 3 didn’t seem as psychically connected as previous rounds have been, and as a result, neither did our issue. We always pick stories we like best, but we also try to think about the issue as a whole. We don’t want stories that explore the same topics in the same issue, or stories with similar plots right after each other. But there has to be some kind of thread running through. And we thought perhaps Issue 3 would be the exception to this guiding principle.
Except, of course, it isn’t. Like all great stories, the fiction that follows grapples with what makes us human, and specifically, how we cope with chaos, whether our own or that of the outside world. Do we try to predict it? Do we try to control our surroundings or the ire within ourselves? Do we bear the pain and powerlessness until it becomes impossible? Are we passive, even to ourselves, and unable to move forward? The characters in these stories must face these questions, just as we must. We’re at a pivotal point in time—one that will force all of us to choose: Stagnancy or action? Fear or courage? Hate or love?
We’re offering up six beautiful stories this issue, stories influenced by the intertwined feelings of hopelessness and hopefulness that have made up 2020. “The Dreammaker,” questions who has the power to punish and what gives them the authority. Moving from ethics and toward grief, “Friday at the Air and Space Museum” confronts a life lived in the confinements of an exhibit, while “Something” hypothesizes predictability and revenge. “Weight of the World” tracks a mother’s trajectory from encumbered to unfettered, and “My Faceless Neighbor” features a protagonist struggling in the liminal space of his apartment complex. And, finally, “Rum and Diet Coke,” with its cutting lines and family dysfunction, reminds us that even in the greatest of disasters, there is usually some glimmer of hope.
If anyone else feels hurled by reality, lost in the chaos of the everyday, we hope the pieces in this issue provide a momentary blockade against despair.
Yours,
Sarah & Anna Blake
P.S. Y’all better vote.