New Maps readers,

Many of you have probably noticed by now that New Maps went silent sometime before the Summer 2025 issue, without a new magazine or any kind of a communiqué since then (except, if you somehow heard about it, one podcast appearance in September). I’m back now, if still limping, but I owe everyone an apology and an explanation. I’ll start with the explanation so you know what it is I’m apologizing for.

Where I’ve been

The short version is that I decided to finish building a giant yurt for my family this year—yes, this is the same year that the family was joined by a second baby—and in order to reach that goal, which was in hindsight biting off way more than I could reasonably chew, I went into a narrower and narrower state of tunnel vision as the year went on. In the early summer, with plenty of time before snow, I was a more or less responsible human, with some semblance of a social life and occasional free time. I even got the Summer issue of New Maps nearly finished before I had to put it on what I thought would be a brief hold. By November, though, when every extra day of work was prized from the jaws of winter only through the grace of luck, I was staying up till 3 a.m. on my shavehorse drawknifing with a headlamp, had blown through my vacation at my day job and was deep into unpaid time off, and not even my mother had heard from me in a month. Every goal not to do with the yurt moldered; I went into debt financially and, worse, socially, taxing my friendships and the tolerance of my partner Misty. Never in my life have I disappointed so many people for so long. But I could see no other way to finish, and had no adequate backup plan.

The situation wasn’t helped by some curveballs that I failed to account for in the spring planning phase. The month of June was eaten more or less whole by health problems in the family. During that month we also, with difficulty, decided to change where we were building it, to different friends’ land, one town down the road from the old site. Aside from the ordeal of moving our small loaner yurt, the new location brought its own new challenge of being more off the grid than I’d expected to be, with no cell signal and no place to use wi-fi without getting into our friends’ personal space. We moved there in July and that’s about when I entered an extended radio silence, not managing, amid family obligations and the yurt build, to wrestle away the few hours I would need to even start catching up on computer work. (Note: the magazine has a new mailing address. See the Contact page.)

In the end, and with the help of many friends who I have yet to figure out how to adequately thank, I pulled it off; we raised the yurt on November 16, just days before two blizzards in two days dropped a foot and a half of snow on us, and we moved in on December 6, evacuating the loaner yurt as it sprang leaks all around its perimeter and all down its walls overnight, as if we had woken up inside the stomach of a horror-movie bog beast.

It was, by all measures, a mad project, and a saner person would have laid off until next spring to finish it without sucking the rest of his life dry. But here I am, finally typing this next to the woodstove in the center of the yurt. I’m very happy to be in it; it’s the first home I’ve ever owned. But the process of repairing the rest of my life is going to take some time.

And I’m sorry

Now, though, following a Christmas trip and a difficult January (let’s just skip the details), my life feels like it’s together enough that I can start repairing the damage with you, the subscribers to this quixotic little project of a magazine, and that starts with an apology. I haven’t gotten any word out to anyone, nor even gotten it together to figure out what magazines I need to send to whom, for not just weeks but months, and that’s a breach of trust that I’m going to work hard to make up. The Summer 2025 issue—which will now have to be the Winter 2026 issue—will get back into process and find mailboxes sometime before or near the equinox. Magazines that have been ordered will finally find their homes. Emails will get answered.

This restart process will have a lot of nitty-gritty details that I haven’t fully worked out yet. Here’s what I have figured out so far:

• I’ll be pausing all auto-renewing subscriptions for one billing cycle (one year), since at this point (considering my one-issue hiatus in fall of 2024) I’m behind by an even year of issues.
  • When I took the 2024 hiatus, I made an offer to auto-renewing subscribers, whose billing dates can’t be changed in my PayPal backend: even up billing dates with renewal dates by accepting a copy of the deindustrial anthology The Flesh of Your Future Sticks Between My Teeth as a substitute for one issue, or, just don’t worry about the date mismatch. To simplify everything, I’ll just reset every auto-renewing subscription so that billing and renewal dates are the same—so, if you took the anthology, you’ll get an extra issue anyway, one that the anthology was meant to replace. If you didn’t, the offer for the anthology is still good.
• If you have a one-off subscription, however many issues are left in it will be sent to you.
• Everyone who’s been a subscriber within the last year is eligible to get a free copy of the Gristle anthology, The Flesh of Your Future Sticks Between My Teeth, as some recompense for putting up with the uncertainty of this year. Just write to me with the subject line “Gristle” to accept; please sign your name. I’m also planning to brew up some different New Maps swag that I can include with issues later this year, though this will have to wait a little while.

As I figure out other details, I’ll send out emails to this list with whatever is relevant to everyone, and individual emails as needed.

Deindustrial fiction: perhaps now more than ever

The months since the last issue have been turbulent not just for me but worldwide, and I still believe deindustrial fiction is one of our best tools for finding our ways through the new realities that present themselves to us. I’m excited now to get back into this magazine and keep bringing great stories to you, if you’re still excited to see them.

See you soon.

Nathanael Bonnell
Editor