The power of fiction lies in its quality of subversive provocation. Fiction writers do not operate from the safety of hindsight nor are they merely recording the present. They understand that compromising one’s artistic vision because of external pressure or expectations, maims not only the writer’s sense of reality, but on a more fatal level, inexorably influences his inmost perceptions about themselves.
If poets are in fact the unacknowledged legislators of the world, as Percy Bysshe Shelly posited, then it is my assertion that fiction writers are our uncredited philosophers.
In the dystopia of George Orwell’s 1984, war is peace; freedom is slavery & ignorance is strength. In Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral,” a blind man bonds with someone who is describing the features of a cathedral to him. In Invisible Man Ralph Ellison’s protagonist finds that the negative connotations attached to his skin color, do, in fact, contribute to the preclusion of his humanity.
Mental impressions & emotional triggers form the crux of our perception & internal responses to phenomenal stimuli. The mind is a liminal organ that we don’t fully understand & is susceptible to becoming easily impressed upon, given the required internal & external forces.
Modern humans, on average, spend seven minutes a day taking selfies. This visual intake is compounded by all the ambient visual information we encounter while going for walks or driving to the grocery store. What does this say about our evolutionary trajectory & at a deeper, more frightening level, how will our actions (or inactions) impact the myriad forms of non-human intelligence that call Earth their home?
I’m sure that I speak for the entire ANMLY staff when I say that it’s an honor to help provide a home to such intrepid, uncompromising & singular works of fiction.
Thank you to each of our contributors for entrusting ANMLY with your work and thank you, dear reader, without whom none of this would exist.
—J.L. Moultrie
October 2024
Featured in this Folio:
ANMLY #39 Fiction Team
Kathryn Henion, Fiction Co-Editor
Addie Tsai, Fiction Co-Editor
J.L. Moultrie, Assistant Fiction Editor & Poetry Reader & Nonfiction Reader
jonah wu, Assistant Fiction Editor
Dino de Haas, Assistant Fiction Editor
Carson Faust, Fiction Reader
Caitlin McKie, Fiction Reader
Solange Neema, Fiction Reader
Ada Onobu, Fiction Reader
Aisling Walsh, Fiction Reader
Claire Wyszynski, Fiction Reader