Note from the Editors

“as if the world has to end before i will realize / it was beautiful…when the music swells / & the end credits roll, tell me you'll keep going even after / the story ends. tell me you’ll keep dancing even after / the orchestra comes to rest; tell me you’ll keep walking / even after we reach the edge of the world & step into the sky.”

- Rosalind Kong (United States), “every good poem i write is about the apocalypse” 

What is writing but crystalizing significance before it falls through the cracks? Notes scribbled in the margins with a half-sharpened pencil, confessions unrealized, the small, invisible ways we love the world from the corner of our mattress, from the birds singing in mid-morning, from the dog-eared pages of culture, adolescence, and language—it’s these moments, although “extra,” that bridge us all.

In Aster Lit Issue 11: Et Cetera, we received over 530 submissions worldwide. We were fascinated by the vulnerability, yet grace, with which you communicated hidden moments that would otherwise be left out for brevity. From the stainless empire of a teaspoon (“A Teaspoon Speaks”) to melancholy train rides (“Summer’s End”), deciding how we want to remember the people that have passed (“Things Left Unsaid,” “Tears, One Week Later,” “rose-tinted skies”), the orchestra of the apocalypse (“every good poem i write is about the apocalypse”) intertwined with footnotes (“footnotes”), crowhood/girlhood (“the crows adore me”) and 20 Marlboro red cigarette butts (“family tree”), compiling these intricacies felt analogous to sitting on the slopes of Quituinan and staring off into the cities we’ve lived in our whole lives (“Quituinan”). As in, we are awed by how familiar, yet how alive, words can be. Whether it’s walking through Central Park (“earnest died in ennui”) or recounting the things we shouldn’t have done (“spinning wheel”), these pieces truly stay with us: fragments of literary architecture, stamps of humanity, so on and so forth (a direct translation of “et cetera”) for as long as we let them linger.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to read all of your amazing work, and we are honored to be the home to 19 incredible works from 17 outstanding writers and artists who awed us with their beautiful imagery, technical mastery, refined craft, developed voices, and inspiring stories and artwork.

To our wonderful international constellation of stars—our readers, our submitters, our Instagram followers, our podcast listeners, and everyone reading this Editor’s Note right now—thank you for making Aster Lit possible. Your voices will continue to motivate us far beyond this issue.

As always, deciding our pieces for publication was extremely difficult. We truly wish we could publish every submission we receive. If your piece was not selected for publication this time, we sincerely invite you to submit to our next issue. Issue 12 will be open for submissions starting in mid-April, and we would love the chance to review your work—we can’t wait! In the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram (@aster.lit) or Twitter (@LitAster) to stay involved with our community and receive updates on issue submissions.

We love you. Your voice matters. Keep telling stories.

With all our love,

The Aster Lit Team