Editor's Introduction
Dear Reader,
Every Sunday afternoon, I sit down to tea in front of my computer. In lieu of chatting with friends, I read stories—the small trickle of tales that have arrived a la story@sliterary.com to my inbox, ever since the magazine first announced its call for submissions. I have enjoyed reading each story, but it was not until I extended the original deadline, and announced the extension, that I received the bulk of the stories you will find in this first issue.
But, before I give you a hint of the contents of this issue, I should briefly digress to the perpetual theme of the magazine—of fiction and Second Life. Fiction, in my humble opinion, is a worldly thing. Common to all stories is a setting, which even if never explicitly mentioned in the body, forms the metaphysics of the world the string of events exists upon. Fiction is molded by the reality of the world it exists in, and the story that embodies it assumes that the reader is aware of the abstractions the story may attempt to convey. Thus arises the essence of sLiterary—stories that exist based on the dynamic interplay between real life and Second Life. Even if set completely in the metaverse, the stories are ultimately about the user’s perception of it. And, it is always the human story.
In this issue, you will find a collection of the best stories I have read for the season—a poem, a playscript, and five stories. You will find: Love of the wondrous ideal kind, in Jack Lefebvre’s “Renaissance.” In “Griefer’s Incessant,” a reclusive bipolar girl’s comic discovery that Second Life is really a more “sharpened version of reality.” In “Making Cats,” by Morrhys Graysmark, a depressed soul’s own realization and confession through both RL and SL events. “By His Own Petard,” a polyphonic story by Marcel Cromulent, will make you raise your eyebrow at what Second Life can be. And finally, the issue concludes with a common experience of loss of a SL-friend due to RL-matters in Mason Dixon’s “The Avatar’s Story,” and a loss of a matter that one would think extinct in the metaverse—unrequited love based on racial prejudice in Ming Zhou’s “Black Betrayal.”
Yours,
Jackline Hugo
Editor in Chief
P.S. In addition to reading stories, I have also replied to a number of queries asking for the expected content of the publication. Some have confused sLiterary with being a strictly literary magazine, perhaps stuffed with your usual stoic, but unbearably long-winded essays on literary criticism. I can assure you that it is not—nor were any of the hundred or so submissions I have read for this first issue. On the contrary, each story thrived with its own living, breathing account of the human condition—despite being set in the metaverse. I bid you turn the page, already, to find out for yourself.
