You Are The Future
“Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one.”
--Doc Brown, Back to the Future, 1989
We often think of time in a linear fashion. The future could be conceived as a brick road, each placed one by one and interconnected with the bricks laid before. Linear. Boring. One foot in front of the other, the unstoppable march towards ‘progress’. On the other hand, the future can be a blinding fantasy. Big starry eyed concepts more in line with fantasy than the common, and disappointing brick. The simplicity and reliability of the brick is insufficient for the needs of many who call themselves' futurists', who can’t imagine walking, let alone down a paved road towards anything.
Instead the futurist needs wax for wings, and fuel for rockets. The futurist sees the horizon before them dotted with self-driving cars and automated stores that dispense hot breakfast sandwiches with bespoke bacon and designer cheese to busy pedestrians. The future is vending machines called ‘Bodega Boxes’ and solutions to problems no one has except people too rich to walk on their own feet down simply paved roads.
We’ve allowed the ‘future’ to be co-opted by narcissists who think the now and the past are problems to solve. But the now and the past are the building blocks for the future. A brick isn’t always laid one on top of the other, it’s one interlocked. Interspersed. Dozens of patterns, sometimes employing the use of multiple sized bricks. The common brick is common because it results in sound structures. The future needs big swings for the fences, but it also needs carefully laid plans set by mindful architects.
Seeing the inevitable march forward as fantasy denies the things in the now that are good now (as few as that seems, as all people think in interesting and troubled times) and ignores their place in the future. What about the good things that are possible now, but that we lack the political will for or means to accomplish? If we look at the future purely from the perspective of technological wonder, what elements of the future are we willing to invest in that prevents a space age Feudalism? What stops a quantum powered Plutocracy? Visions of the future ultimately must be able to imagine the now, the past, and the people that live now, and will live hopefully in the future.
--Written by Katie Wong, Qwerty #50 Guest Editor
Imagine a point in the next 50 years. Tell us a story of this future.
This contest is broadly inclusive and encourages submissions from communities historically decentered. Entrants must be unpublished in chapbook form or longer, and a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident.
The $20 entry fee covers one chapbook submission of 4000-8000 words of prose, in a single document with 1-inch margins on all sides. Do not label your chapbook with your name or address. Include your name and full contact information in the cover letter section, as well as what year or timespan your story takes place in.
Chapbooks may be on any subject as long as it fits within the general theme of imagining life within the next 50 years. You may expand on a work you have previously published, but the majority of the piece must be original and not previously curated. You may also take inspiration from previous themed issues of Qwerty Magazine (queerness, ecology, collage, food, fairytales & folklore, home/hown, protest & consent) and explore them in a speculative capacity.
The winning chapbook will receive publication as Homerow Chapbook #4 in Spring 2025, 10 complimentary print copies, and promotion via social media. The second place winner will be the first work published on the 50th Issue section of our website in Winter 2025. The third place winner will be released in our 50th issue, to be released in Summer 2025. All selections will be judged by Trynne Delaney (the half-drowned, Metatron Press, 2022), Qwerty Prose Editor Alex Prong, and Homerow Chapbook Series Editor Jamie Kitts (Girl Dinner, Emergency Flash Mob Press, 2024).
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO WE ACCEPT AI-GENERATED ART OF ANY GENRE, BE IT POETRY, PROSE, OR VISUAL
Deadline is November 30, 2024; all submissions can be made through Submittable: qwertymagazine.submittable.com/submit
TRYNNE DELANEY is a writer currently based in Tkaronto (Toronto). They are the author of the half-drowned (winner of the QWF First Book Prize) and A House Unsettled. Recently, they’ve been thinking about the space between desire and departure.