Last Call

LAST CALL

by Terese Mason Pierre and Avi Silver

Forgiveness,
hold the door. We’re coming

— “Departure for Noah’s Ark,” by Farah Ghafoor

What are we holding onto? What are we letting go?

Issue 6.1 looks often towards the future: outward, onward, forward. Herein, we aim to discover, to chart new territory, to catalyze change—sometimes beautiful, sometimes disastrous. In these pages, we see the end of the world over and over and over again, rising and falling with love and grief. We see relationships with ourselves and others bend and twist like vines, rounding the globe in a complex embrace. We see the land spread out, storied and swollen, grass and dust and cells made unfamiliar. We see ourselves in the mirror (at last!), our voices sharp and biting back. As readers move through this ever-shifting world, touching palms with ghosts and auguring a future that does not always feel bright, we hope this issue can inspire a sense of possibility. For better or worse: something new will come.

New forms, formats, and containers separate this issue from others we’ve published. The role of the textbook in this issue is an intimacy: indexing and organizing are a form of love, an effort to distill and comprehend what feels unknowable to us. It also leads to misunderstanding, and questioning the lens through which these analyses are made. We want readers to read into the footnotes, to explore the order of things. We might ask a little more from readers this time around, and we know they can rise to the challenge. Issue 6.1 also marks the return of comics to Augur Magazine, thanks to new Comics Editor Victor Martins, and we’re excited to hold space for those creators again.

This pitch meeting was one of our favorites—it’s hard to explain, but there was a magical sort of tenderness in the room that set the tone for this issue, and carried through to the finished issue. For 6.1, several team members completed their training period and stepped fully into their own projects. It is a delight to continue learning from one another and watching how each new voice is a new evolution of Augur.

And speaking of Augur’s evolution, we received enough funding to run a second—and, this time, in-person—AugurCon, so expect that at the end of August 2023. Additionally, we welcomed new editors to the masthead: Conyer Clayton, Suha Tariq, Julia Bortolussi, and Frankie Hagg. Along with being our Copy Manager, long-time Augur member Sonia Urlando stepped into the role of Editor. Finally, the talented Martine Nguyen became our Art Director. We’re overjoyed that they come with new insight, skills, and a generosity of spirit regarding the work we do.

We thank our readers for walking alongside us into the future, and holding the stories we give them with soft, open hands.

Terese Mason Pierre & Avi Silver