Patient New Maps readers,

The Winter 2023 issue—the Magic Issue—is finally out! It’s on its way to subscribers now; if you aren’t subscribed, you can get a copy now at the order page. In a change of pace, the digital version (usually made available a week or so after the print version) is up now at New Maps’ Payhip store. If you’re not already subscribed, subscribe by March 15 and you’ll still get this issue as the first in your subscription. Full-year packages for 2022 are now available too!

Though it’s still February—if just barely—and everything around me is three feet deep in snow, I know spring is nearly upon us, and I apologize for the lateness of this issue. I plan to make up lost time this spring!

All the same, I hope you’ll agree this issue is worth the wait. The idea for a Magic Issue goes back almost to the beginning of this magazine: after an interesting submission gave me the idea, I proposed in the Spring 2021 issue the idea of an issue devoted to “magic realism” visions of the deindustrial future: in which we imagine what it would be like if magic were woven into the texture of the collapse of the fossil fuel way of life—not to solve or forestall the collapse, but to show it to us in a different light. Since readers showed interest, I’ve been slowly collecting stories, and at last there are enough to make this issue, which I’m very excited to share.

What kind of magic do we have? All sorts: from a subway car visited by scruffy supernatural subterraneans, to a way to escape Earth that seems too perfect to be true, to high-schoolers experimenting with an occult slide rule, to a witch with an ancient secret to use on an invading army, to the genesis of a new goddess from warring times and troubled origins.

New Maps Gets Social

Though this publication remains defiantly analog (some might go as far as “Luddite”), I’ve recently started a Twitter for it, @NewMapsMagazine. For each person who normally reads only tweets, but then takes the plunge and starts reading a paper magazine, I’ll count one more victory against the notion that the future moves only toward higher tech!

If you do use the ol’ blue bird, consider following the magazine. I’m also happy to hear from you about who else on the Twittersphere has interesting ideas aligned with the mission of New Maps!

You may also have noticed that articles from yours truly have started appearing at [Resilience.org], starting with my review of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home from the very first issue. More articles from New Maps will continue to be posted there, possibly including new articles not before seen in the magazine. Keep an eye out at Resilience, or on Twitter.

Get Those Letters In

Because this issue was behind schedule, there’ll be an unusually quick turnaround on letters for the Spring issue. Please send them in by April 1 (no fooling). I hope you’ll write in, whoever you may be—letters from all and sundry, are one of the most wonderful parts of the New Maps community, and the sundrier the merrier.

Happy reading,
Nathanael Bonnell
Editor, New Maps