It’s hard to reflect on the past year without feeling like we’ve entered a fictional tale. And yet here we are: not only has COVID-19 taken root around the world, but wildfires have raged across the Arctic Circle, Brazil, Australia, and the western United States; people have risen up to stand against racial injustice, and it feels as though we're witnessing only the beginning of a deep fracturing of this civilization. We do not yet know the changes that will come to light locally and globally.
Volume II of our print edition speaks to the multiple crises and opportunities unfolding around us: plague, extinctions, and loneliness grip us ever tighter even as they affirm our connection with the living world. Across 400 pages—and through essays, photography, adapted multimedia, poems, and original artwork—this collection considers the stories that we want to seed in these mythological times.
Our contributors include two Pulitzer Prize finalists and a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as recipients of the American Book Award, the Wenlock Prize, the TED Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, The Bookseller Book of the Year Award, the John Burroughs Medal for Outstanding Nature Writing, the Pushcart Prize, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize.