Welcome to Issue 07! Affectionately known to the editors as the seventh issue. This issue marks our first issue with a new cover artist (Wenting Li) and we are very excited to be working with her for two more covers after this one. As we write this letter it is nearly June and by the time you’re reading this, Summer 2021 will have officially begun. It feels like after everything that has happened to us all over the past year and a half that optimism is finally ready to pop its head out of the ground again like so many millions of cicadas. Is this even a literature magazine if we don’t regularly mention cicadas?

We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about other literary magazines, but we do know that they exist. We know that many magazines have themed issues. Funicular doesn’t officially have themed issues, at least not ones that we announce in advance. We like to see how things come together in the moment. Sometimes the connections are big and sometimes they are small. Most connections are for you to discover on your own, but we want you to know that these pieces were compiled in this issue with the same care and attention that the writers put into writing them.

You wore the masks, you worked in the masks, you worked from home, you went to school on a computer, you kept your distance, you waved to family and friends from behind panes of glass or liquid crystal displays, you looked out for one another. So reward yourself by opening up this magazine with a cold drink and reading in the warm embrace of a month that asks nothing more of you than to watch the sun move its way slowly across the sky.

Knock yourself out.

Issue 07 is available RIGHT NOW.

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