If only I could sit down with you face-to-face and describe every story, poem, memoir, and script with you – maybe then you’d understand how proud and grateful I am to be part of this collective. The writers express imaginative and cutting-edge worldviews with a confidence and craftsmanship usually reserved for the already acclaimed. Their challenge was interpreting our theme ‘seed’ and conveying this understanding in meaningful and engaging ways.
It’s this kind of youthful honesty and fearless experimentation that characterises the Quarry.
Many writers considered seed as a literal platform, a space where they could reinvent the confines of the real world. In fact, as I’m sure you’ll soon discover, science fiction is a very pervasive genre throughout the journal. From a reincarnated world of tree-like entities to an alien aboard a lonely spaceship, the speculative fiction writers imagined scenarios that are as disenfranchised as they are harrowing.
Others, however, embraced the figurative and metaphoric, affirming the presence of literary lovers amongst our ranks. We watch a man at the edges of consciousness travel toward a city of mirages; chuckle while the uncanny alien ‘Dorkan’ travels through a world of popular culture references to plant his seed; and palpitate with anxiety when illegitimate marriages, lost loves, abhorrent alcoholics, stray cats ad coffee-shops, fatalistic collisions, or any other infinity of disaster enters the stage, and dissolves our minds with tragedy.
Our memoirists uncover the bottomless well of memory, where recognition of no longer existing in an immediate and untouchable reality can cause celebration or introspection. While some use personal experience to critique social anomalies, others remain more solipsistic, asking us to remember the good-old-days, where we never knew the remorse, regret, and ache that hounds our every footstep in the unstoppable march of time.
The screenwriters demonstrate an artistic perception that evolves words from ideas and into visually projectable images. We see satire and drama arise from the relationships of people and the world they inhabit.
Moreover, the poets convey a sensitivity and affection for language that demands attention. Their acute rhythm, gentle phrasing, and representation of compelling personas will enlighten any stranger to poetry.
Like I said earlier, I wish I could tell you everything about the writing now. It’s hard work restraining myself. And as David Foster Wallace has taught me to believe, the most dried up and exhausted platitudes often contain the most poignant and important realities. So let me say that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, come along, grab the best chilli in town, and allow me to introduce Issue #5 of the Quarry.
Written by Jack Stanton
