On graciousness, patience, and issue two (yes, there's a release date)

If I think too hard about when the process for issue two of Mycelium Magazine started, I get a bit of a headache. Not because it was a bad experience by any means at all, just because it means facing the great expanse of time that sprawled and ran and shoved between then and now. I’ve learned the graciousness of the creative human psyche, and the patience extended my way by the literary community was and is a major contributing factor to my ability to say issue two is on the horizon, it’ll see the world soon. Very soon. Final drafts of the accepted submissions have been flowing together on an ever growing document, a table of contents has been created, and all that’s left to do is add our cover. October 12th 2021, when the moon hits the first quarter, issue two of Mycelium will be published online.

Sustainability, that’s our theme this time around. How do we sustain ourselves during a pandemic. How do we sustain life on Earth. How how how. It’s a difficult thing to think about during a time of death and catastrophe, especially as I lost my job, had to leave my PhD program, forge an entirely new life path out of basically nothing. The parts of myself that I have sustained, though, are more truly and purely myself. I have sustained a need to return to the literary world, to see this issue and magazine through. I have sustained a passion for experiencing creativity manifested in poetry, art, fiction, what have you. Judging from the submissions we received this cycle, and by what ultimately ended up in the issue, it seems that the collective creative is sustaining itself by diving deeper and deeper into the process of making something. An artistic boom, a revival. In a time when everything seems to be falling apart and dying, creating something takes on a new level of importance.

I am, however, realistic. Issue two of Mycelium is not going to solve the global climate crisis. No poem or painting or essay will. In my mind, being honest about that actually lends more power to the creative process. I know my writing isn’t going to save anything, but I desperately need to get it out, and in doing so I save a part of myself. And I am part of the world.

To the contributors who took the time to share their work with us: thank you, thank you. Your work sustained me. Your patience taught me a new kind of gentleness. As the world around me continues to fall apart, I’m happy and eager to put something together.

With love,

Editor in Chief, Madison Fay Ford