Preorders Are Open for Opus II, Issue I: Presto

A sleight of hand, a piano flourish, a beat drop in a crowded bar, a mirrorball-spun hymn to a god of doors & light: Half Mystic Journal’s Opus II, Issue I: Presto is open for preorder now. Our eleventh issue, the first in the new opus of Half Mystic, & the underside of the allegro theme that began this project, Opus II, Issue I is our most ambitious & evasive release yet. It lives swathed in the imaginary & teetering toward the real, whirls ever more rapidly to the beat of becoming.

The presto issue features the voices of Will Cordeiro, Maggie Warren, E.B. Schnepp, xochi quetzali cartland, Grace Kwan, Suzannah Watchorn, Abigail Chang, Jesica Davis, Hannah Yerington, Ivi Hua, Annione Ryan Platten, Morphic Rooms, & more. It comes out on June 28th, & paperback & PDF copies are available for preorder now.

Submissions for Opus II, Issue I: Presto are now closed. This issue marked our busiest reading period yet, with over 800 submissions of poetry, prose, & visual art from writers & artists around the globe. Our editorial team is still reviewing the work we received in the last few weeks of the reading period, & we’ll have final decisions sent out (& a complete issue line-up announced!) within the next two weeks.

Until then, the best way to support our independent press is by preordering our first new issue in two years. Subscriptions to Half Mystic Journal start at $16, & make beautiful gifts for yourself or a music lover in your life. & don’t forget to ask your local library or independent bookstore for back issues of Half Mystic Journal—the entirety of our first opus is available to purchase or borrow at locations around the world.

The presto issue flirts with sun & darts to darkness, sings of man-made magick, blurred vision, glitter in the shadows, an aria half-lucid & bewitched by the myth of movement. Issue XI lives on the currency of old dreams & new speed, & right at the moment when you think you’ve learned its dance, it dares you to circle back & look again.