From the Editor: The Nocturne Issue

It is a difficult thing to assemble darkness into an act of creation.

And for Issue III of Half Mystic, our team & contributors leaned into that difficulty, refused to shy away. With the news growing increasingly bleaker & the world outside morphing into some thickened dream that none of us quite recognised, we chose this time to grow acquainted with the black. Lean forward, push through silence, & grasp for some kind of symphony in the velvet-folded dusk.

I learned something startling while anchored here: that perhaps this night-soaked elegy, this liminal collection of shadow & song, holds a sense of light of & through & around all that darkness. For two years, we at Half Mystic have reimagined melody into every golden form we know how to hold. Issue III, then, is a testament to what happens when we turn away from the light & - beautifully, terrifyingly, inevitably - stumble upon it anyway.

Issue III of Half Mystic is a story about night, & breath, & every true & tender space we create for ourselves in the sharp-quiet moments after the music fades to black. It is a story about waking up & standing up. It is a story about rich & sudden wonder. It is a story about linking arms & breathing in time with the music that has carried us this far already.

Join us now. Arms stretched out, eyes wide open, listening for song in the dark.

This issue centres around the theme of nocturne: the midnight drive - the shadow dance - the things leftover when the music fades to black. Myself, the HM team, & our incredible contributors have worked hard to shape this issue into a creation & an experience & an achievement all in one. Featuring creators such as Alice Kristiansen, Maryse Meijer, F. Daniel Rzicznek, Kristin Berger, & many more, the nocturne edition is rich, abrupt, & unlike any of HM's previous issues.

Order your copy today to support our journal & the independent artists who make it real, & receive a stunning anthology of art, lyrics, & writing stretches out through darkness, plucks the strings of night, burns stars into being even in all this black. Thank you, dear songbirds, for helping Half Mystic live on for many more issues to come.