It's a Jumble

Poem for a Sunday night: " The Sciences Sing a Lullaby"

Lackington’s is a new online speculative fiction magazine with a focus on beautiful prose—what the editors refer to as stylized prose. I’m a sucker for beautiful prose, so the concept of this journal appealed to me from the start. Then the introductory forward to the first issue drew me in and whispered star-lit promises. From Issue One’s introductory forward : “ The world isn’t built on hook-plot-epiphany, and it isn’t experienced in digestible, everyday language. One might argue that literature doesn’t operate the same way the world does, but nor should it operate as if it came out of a box, complete with instruction manual. An epiphany isn’t half as valuable when it’s as dependable as the tide, after all.” Editor Ranyl Richildis argues that the conventions of genre fiction—the story-telling “musts” that are taught as basics to beginning writers--constrain the literature produced and read. Does a character really need to change over the course of story? Does every story n...