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Issue XVI Experiments in Form
INTRODUCED BY MARIANNE JANACK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Tractatus de formis
1. The world is all that is the case
2. The world is a world of facts rather than things.
2.1 Facts are structured by forms.
2. 1. 1 Memo, treatise, multiple choice test, forced choice survey, encyclopedia entry, crossword puzzle, . letter, user’s manual, game, script—each form shows, though does not state, a certain purpose.
2. 1. 1. 1. 1 It is repetitive and rule bound . Until it’s not.
3. Forms picture the orderliness of the world. . a. But they may point to a world that is not predictable or orderly.
CONTRIBUTORS
Jonathan Louis Duckworth (he/him) is a completely normal, entirely human person with the right number of heads and everything. He is the author of Have You Seen the Moon Tonight? & Other Rumors (JournalStone Publishing) and his work appears in Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Vastarien, Pseudopod, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and elsewhere.
Ayida Shonibar (she/they) writes dark and wistful speculative fiction that appears or is forthcoming in Silk & Sinew (Bad Hand Books), Heartlines Spec, Worlds of Possibility, Wilted Pages (Shortwave Publishing), Luminescent Machinations (Neon Hemlock), and Nature Futures, among others. You can find more information at ayidashonibar.com.
Liz Ulin has had several short stories adapted and produced for theater, and was the winner of the Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition. Her stories have also been published in Flash Fiction, Short Circuit, Ninth Letter, Sans Press, The Great Ape, Book XI: A Journal of Literary Philosophy, The Afterpast Review, and Broad Knowledge. She lives and works in Montreal, Quebec.
Nathan Dixon is author of Radical Red (forthcoming, BOA Editions), which won the BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize. He received his PhD in English literature and creative writing from the University of Georgia. His creative work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Cincinnati Review, Fence, Tin House, Carolina Quarterly, Redivider, and elsewhere. His critical/academic work has appeared in MELUS Journal, 3:AM Magazine, Transmotion, and Renaissance Papers. He lives in Durham, NC, with his family and teaches at North Carolina Central University.
William Steffen is an associate professor of English at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in creative writing, literature, and Shakespeare. His creative non-fiction has appeared in Full Bleed, and his short fiction has been featured in Last Girls Club, Deal Jam Magazine, and a number of anthologies. His short story “Melissa’s Ring,” was one of the winners of the Fall 2023 fiction prize hosted by Empyrean Literary Magazine. He lives in Holyoke, MA with his wife and two children.