Songs for the Presto Issue (A Selection)

An ineffable, blink-quick mix of songs chosen by our team & contributors to evoke the flirtation of silk & song woven through the presto issue.

"A ringing clarity, followed by smoke. Deliberate naughtiness." ([sarah] Cavar on Presto)

What would my craft be, we and I, if not for the lovers I share us with?

Literature, Music, Personal Essay, PoliticsGuestMay 28, 2024[sarah] Cavar, Leila Chatti, Mary Oliver, Chen Chen, nat raum

Preorders Are Open for Opus II, Issue I: Presto

Issue XI lives on the currency of old speed & new dreams, & right at the moment when you think you’ve learned its dance, it dares you to circle back & look again.

From the Editor: Adrienne Novy's Crowd Surfing With God: 5 Year Anniversary Special Edition

May this book teach you, when the ache looms loud & large in your peripheral vision, to invite it inside & ask for its forgiveness.

From the Editor, Music, Announcements, LiteratureTopaz WintersDecember 18, 2023Adrienne Novy

“My poems couldn’t save me from wanting to die.” (An Interview With Adrienne Novy)

I don’t know if I’m reaching backward in the anniversary edition so much as listening to my younger self reach forward.

“There exists a joy and hunger for more in that younger self.” (Adrienne Novy on Crowd Surfing With God: 5 Year Anniversary Special Edition)

That intensity is impossible to replicate as an adult, I think, because it reverts to nostalgia for us.

Music, Literature, Personal EssayGuestDecember 9, 2023Adrienne Novy, Hanif Abdurraqib

Introducing Crowd Surfing With God: 5 Year Anniversary Special Edition

This book is for you, yes—but more importantly, it’s for the things that tried to destroy you & failed. It’s for the past selves that live in you, still breathing, still breathing.

Announcements, Literature, MusicTopaz WintersOctober 18, 2023Adrienne Novy, Hanif Abdurraqib

“Music was a helpful place to live in the yearning.” (An Interview with Sara Mae of The Noisy)

There was a time where I saw myself and my desire as violent, and this song is meant to complicate that story.

From the Editor & Contest: Lucy Hannah Ryan’s You Make Yourself Another

Every note of this song of our making & remaking belongs to you.

From the Editor, Literature, MusicTopaz WintersApril 18, 2023Lucy Hannah Ryan

"A name is as malleable as a past, a body, and every other part of the self." (An Interview With Lucy Hannah Ryan)

Even in stories featuring dead characters, more often than not it’s my protagonists that do the haunting, looming like spectres over their own lives, trying to break through and feel real again.