Introducing Elegy

Half Mystic is rounding this summer on our seventh year alive as a press: seven years kissed full on the mouth, in thunder & colour, renaissance of resonance. & as much as we have to celebrate—the way the synaesthesia era was a full-hearted celebration, a love tethered to the now—we know, too, that moving forward means grieving for the things we’ve left behind.

So for the theme of our tenth journal issue, we’re settling into an elegy: the last dropped petal—the mirror in mourning—the light still on for what once was beautiful.

Elegy is a lament for the dead, a prayer against forgetting, a testament to what can never be again. Submissions for Issue X are now open. For the first time, Half Mystic is listed on Submittable—so sharing your work with us is easier than ever. Regular submissions are always free, but you can also send in a $5 tip jar submission to support Half Mystic’s work, or pay $15 for the editorial review option to receive detailed feedback on your submission from two members of our team. Send us your best art & writing celebrating the theme of elegy. The new issue comes out in July 2022.

If you’d like inspiration for your elegy submission, consider purchasing a paperback or PDF copy of Half Mystic Journal’s Issue IX: Synaesthesia, out now! Issue IX flirts with the corporeal, sings as it stings, undelicious as longing & surreal in fever pitch. We’d be overjoyed to share our paean to the present with you.

There is much to grieve, dear songbirds. There is also much to hold, to celebrate & lift up into the light, even now, even after everything. It’s been seven years. We’re ready for an era that breathes lonely & gentle into its ache, honouring absence & the space it creates for hope. Welcome to elegy, to the mortal. It’s safe to remember here. It’s a kind of survival, meaning a kind of song.