Some Small Hopes

by Kerry C. Byrne

Something we’ve noticed, going through our submissions, is that there is often a lot of the grim; the dark; the traumatic.

We do not shy from these stories. As a team, I’d say we gravitate towards them. Love them, even. You can see plenty of melancholy, of mourning, in the stories we’ve put out so far. And it isn’t surprising. Under-represented and marginalized creators are, well, under-represented and marginalized—digging into the hurt and loss that comes with that makes sense. Parsing it makes sense. More than makes sense. It is your—our—right to carve out space to mourn, when we often aren’t given that space in our day to day lives. There is a lot of beauty, and a lot of feeling, invested in this deeply personal process.

Melancholy, mourning: these are valuable things, welcome to the Augur team at any time. Mourn with us, for what is lost, what is never had. We are here for you, in that work.

But we also wanted to look for other things.

So far I’ve brought up the term “better futures” in every one of these notes. I promise next time, I’ll try to avoid it—I don’t want to tire it out! But when we sat down to this issue, we wanted to make sure that, alongside melancholy and grief, we also dug into the kinds of stories that would help us find those futures. That hinted at futures at all. That dug into how we can make the futures that suit our most true selves.

We wanted to find some hope.

It wasn’t entirely intentional. None of us spoke of this as we put together the lineup. As our pitch meeting went on, we simply started aligning on the stories that gave us something to look forward to. Not necessarily all that much. There is plenty of loss and hurt in these pages. Plenty of body horror and trauma and grief.

But there are also hopeful somethings.

Some small thing. Some small hint of a future that is not as dark; some idea that the ending can be brighter than the beginning.

With this hope, too, comes fighting. Not with fists, but with heart and minds and emotional labour. Fighting wars that wage when we close our eyes at night, or that follow us in the tingle of the skin at our shoulders. The wars that come with us each day, and keep us on edge.

Not every story or poem in this issue is made from happiness. But there is tension; there is fight. There is a sense of searching, of looking—and, every so often, of something being found.

These have made us some smidge stronger: made us feel seen, and filled us with an energy that comes with rooting for something. And we hope that they will accompany you as you fight your own battles, and help you to face and heal your own wounds.

We all deserve to live with the small somethings of hope.

Continued in Augur Magazine Issue 1.2...