Tales of Kick-Ass Viking Women—and End-of-Season Updates
Hello Metapsychonauts!!
This week marks the completion of a cycle we began in March, when we committed, as an editorial team, to publishing two pieces a week, consistently, through the end of July.
I’m proud to say we accomplished our objective, and will now be taking a deep breath through the month of August. This is the last newsletter you’ll receive from us for another month.
What an eventful and dare I say glorious five months it’s been, starting with our call for submissions on “Writing from the Future” through our current call on “Creature Consciousness,” whose deadline (as a reminder, if you’re thinking of submitting) is coming up at the end of this month, on August 31st.
We cap off this publishing cycle with an essay by Tom Valovic, “The Corporatization Of Just About Everything—Including The Climate Crisis And Other Space,” which hearkens back to the critiques of “the establishment” and “the system” that we heard in the 1960s, to remind us that another world is still possible—if we still want it—though the corporate, governmental, and institutional forces that have consolidated control appear to be stronger than ever.
And finally, adding a striking exclamation mark to the season, is a new essay from Metapsychosis editor Mary Thaler: “Three Women From Viking Sagas Who Chose Their Own Path.” In this essay, Mary recounts the stories of three women from 13th and 14th-century Norse sagas who, in a time, place, and culture of extreme patriarchal violence, under the burden of an inexorable fatalism, somehow were able to forge lives worthy of their own extraordinary tales.
I want to thank all the authors and artists who have contributed to the journal so far this year. You can see everything we’ve published in our featured archives. Do peruse at your leisure. No doubt there was some great stuff you missed!
Deep bows of gratitude, especially, to our associate editors, who contributed their prodigious talents with incredible generosity, including Brian George, Mary Thaler, Geoffreyjen Edwards, and our newest editor, Lauren Rhiannon Lockhart. We also got some wonderful support and participation from Lisa Maroski, Chase Griffin, and “Ana Graham.” And as always, my wife Kayla has been graciously holding down the technical fort with her web and book design skills—along with many other kinds of support behind the scenes.
Speaking of which, I’d be remiss not to mention our Untimely Books authors, who in a way represent the deeper level of the collective project we’ve been undertaking through Metapsychosis journal. Since 2022 we’ve published six amazing books, with the seventh, Andrea van de Loo’s The Pressing Stones: The Healing Journey of a Nazi’s Daughter, due out in print, e-book, and audiobook on September 24th. More are in the works….
Over the coming month(s), we intend to work on some improvements to the journal, including a new comment system, easier navigation, and a revised submission process. We will also be revamping our patronage program, and really hope you’ll become a supporter so that we can continue doing what we’re doing—and do it better.
Penultimately, allow me to bring your attention once again to our community forum at Infinite Conversations. This forum will be going private over the next few months, in order to provide a more intimate and tailored experience for our members—but you can still join for free. Most likely, existing and participating members will get some kind of free pass before we begin charging (probably, quite modestly) for access.
Finally, you may wish to join the email list and stayed tuned to Cosmos Co-op, our parent organization, which is in the final stages of formalizing its organizational structure (with our legal counsel) and preparing for a membership initiative and fundraising/investment campaign—which will be a pretty huge deal for us, over eight years in the making.
To learn more, please join us for one of the community meet-ups coming up this week:
Cosmos Local Meet-Up (Colorado) – Monday, August 5 at 7 pm MDT
Cosmos Community Meet-Up – Thursday, August 8 at 12 pm MDT
That’s all for now, folks! For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere of this beautiful pale blue dot we call home, I hope you’re managing to stay cool—and sane. And for those of you “down under,” well, hi there… and thanks for reading!
See you on the other side,
Marco V Morelli
Editor-in-Chief, Metapsychosis journal
Co-Creator, Cosmos Co-op
@madrush: on Mastodon | on Infinite Conversations
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