The world as we know it is coming apart at its seams. For many of us, this new normal is a thing which is here to stay, for perhaps the better part of our lives. In a sense, it all feels like we’re approaching an ending. And it seems inevitable, until better sense prevails among the ruling elites and the tyrannical governments of the world. Until the hate roaming the earth is ushered out by love. Until then, for comfort, we’ll keep turning to stories.
When we opened Tasavvur for general submissions, we were eager to read stories from new voices and new perspectives. But there was certainly a niggling question — “what if we don’t get enough submissions?” We didn’t have a number in mind, but in our bi-weekly meet-ups it was decided that 40 stories was a good number for a magazine which was dedicated to a limited demographic, and had a limited open-period of submissions.
We were pleasantly surprised when, at the end of the submission period, we ended up receiving 76 stories!
The stories we received ranged from whimsical, to dark-fantasy, to quiet horror, to some great science-fiction. While reading slush, there wasn’t a theme we could ascribe to the stories we were reading. But surprisingly, the stories we’ve finalized ended up revolving around themes of loss, longing, and the nature of endings. A majority of the stories in this issue are quiet in nature, and don’t immediately unfold their truths. But that’s what the best kind of stories do. Beneath all the layers of these stories, there also exists some kind of darkness. Darkness which our real world is very keen to thrust upon us. And it’s no wonder the writers attempting to write short fiction in times like these garb this darkness in marvelous prose and grounded, truthful storytelling. In the stories we selected, there’s also an emotional honesty, and that’s one of the main reasons those stories truly stood out among the slush-pile.
We hope the readers enjoy these stories as much as we do.