Excerpt from apt’s fourth print annual

We’ll have a few full excerpts in the coming weeks from our fourth print annual, but we wanted to start with a brief description of how this issue of apt came to be.

We’re including our editors’ note below, as followed by an image featuring short snippets from each of our contributors.

You can order a copy of our fourth issue from us (or from SPD, or Brookline Booksmith, where we’ll be having a reading and release party on January 18 at 7pm), and while you’re waiting for it to arrive, enjoy our introduction—

Editors’ Note

We have never set out to produce a themed issue of apt. In fact, we’ve never made an attempt to hew closely to any movement, style, or aesthetic. For three years, we’ve been fortunate to publish issues featuring work that complemented and engaged with that which surrounded it. While we didn’t seek out synchronicity, it sought us out and made this issue better for having found it.

As the work that constitutes issue four began building up, a pattern emerged and specific subjects kept returning to the fore: freedom, politics, government, human rights, war, equality, justice, and the search for individual identity in an increasingly homogenized world. These ideas pervade the narratives in this issue just as they pervade our modern lives—sometimes covertly, sometimes plain as day. It is with that in mind that we present to you: The Surveillance Issue. It may be unsettling to consider the ways these stories, poems, and essays view the world, but that will fall away when you remember all the ways in which we consistently survey ourselves.

As always, thank you for reading.

Carissa Halston & Randolph Pfaff
Editors