“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.”

—Ursula K. Le Guin (National Book Awards, 2014)

Issue 2025.74

Short stories

• ‘The Sons of Victor Levitak’, Rowley Amato - art by Toeken
• ‘Sentinel’, Lauren Ferebee - art by Barbara Candiotti
• ‘Seven Stories for Now and Later’, Nancy S. Koven
• ‘Unblooded Gospel’, Justin Taroli - art by Toeken

Novelettes

• ‘The Better Ends’, V. Zixin - art by Carmen Moran
• ‘Limue’s Alphabet’, Eleanor Glewwe - art by Barbara Candiotti

Poetry

• ‘The Void Is in a Playful Mood Tonight’, Naomi Simone Borwein - art by Carmen Moran

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Maybe art doesn’t have the power to change the world in the short term, and even if it did, there’s plenty of bad art out there glorifying violence and selfishness and distrust and lone heroes and regressive values. But art full of resistance and change, art full of community and beauty, art full of caring and hope, can help to redress that balance. It can make changes in us, which is a precondition to our being willing to change the world. To our having a community worth saving the world for.

Useful and beautiful art can take many forms. Words, yes, both prose and verse and ambiguous; graphic arts, figurative, abstract, surreal or otherwise. Art can give us good examples or bad, can instill us with hope or with warning, can offer community or feed righteous rage. So today welcome to several stories of monsters: of fragile community and solidarity, even with the monsters among us; of monsters even in a place of love; of monsters as societal predators, and subcultures that feed on each other; monsters who live in the margins of an eco-parable. Welcome to stories of beauty even in ecological collapse; of community even among violent clash of cultures; of the beauty of language even among unequal cultural contact and colonialism.

Whether they fill you with longing, or fear, or familiar grit, or spoopy charm, the stories, poems and art in this issue are a reminder of a world worth saving. Join me in thanking Barbara, Carmen, Eleanor, Justin, Lauren, Nancy, Naomi, Rowley, Toeken and V. for their beautiful work. See you next time.

Djibril al-Ayad, September 2025

Comment on the stories in this issue on the TFF Press blog.