Introduction to Issue 7: September 30, 2010
By John "JAM" Arthur Miller, LI Online Publisher
Fiction dominates minds. Today's technological luxuries existed in science-fiction first, before they existed in our modern society. The internet appeared in David Brin's book entitled Earth. Communicators (cell phones) and Uhura's Earpiece (Bluetooth technology is paving the way toward this phenomena) existed in Star Trek before some of us were born. Some sociologists and psychiatrists would venture to say that our world-society as a whole "guesses" where we're headed, almost on a psychic level, on a level that Carl Jung would call the collective consciousness. Perhaps that psychic information is picked up by some of our most creative writers, poets and artists and instilled within their fiction. Perhaps David Brin dialed into the worldwide frequency of pure creativity and liquid imagination when he wrote Earth.
Think about when the Puritans first came to America. Surely that was like entering a new fantasy world of danger and mayhem. Our earliest American literature denotes the savagery of Early America coupled with a feeling of awe; this awe being the same target-emotion that fantasy writers clamor to produce in their writings.
The fact that fiction either reciprocates what has transpired in the past in the form of historical fiction and fantasy, or paves the way of the future through science fiction shows us that fiction is more than entertainment—it reaches into the core of humanity and guides. It reveals our past, our present and paves the way to the future by germinating the seeds of What If? within the human psyche.
The key is the amount of emotional truth instilled into fiction. I remember hearing about an editor counseling a young eighteen-year-old girl. She kept asking, "What's next?" She wrote wonderfully, but her immaturity came across in her writing. He told her to "go out and get some world experience." When he met her again years later, she was writing about love and heartbreak with much more mature and sophisticated themes, because she had gone out into the world. It seems that writers are influenced by the world as much as they seek to influence it. All writers are constantly seeking to prove true the old adage The Pen is mightier than the Sword.
Within this issue of Liquid Imagination you will find emotional truth. Whether it's humor-based or comes at you with a vicious leap of horror, whether it makes you laugh or fills you with wonder, the stories selected have emotional truth targeting AWE! Because we live in a world dominated by technology, we cannot produce this issue without technology dominating the words you are about to read; from HTML and computer coding required to format the appearance, to the art and music of Brandon Rucker (who is leaving us as a musician but joining us as the Micro-Fiction Editor), to the audio stories enhanced by the voice of Robert Eccles and Sue Babcock, technology holds this issue in its hands as surely as Sophia does.
Editor's Note: If you don't know who Sophia is, look here. She's in this issue, but behind the scenes, resting.
Many of the stories and poems appearing in our digital and literary sections this issue uses today's technology throughout. They celebrate technology and would not work so well without technological enhancement. So read them, enjoy them, and celebrate with them the wonders of technology.
In addition, I have to say that technology has even influenced Liquid Imagination's new mission statement:
Liquid Imagination Mission Statement
Our mission is to publish a wide variety of art, creating visually stimulating publications of the highest quality that combine many artistic avenues, including graphic and digital art as well as traditional illustrations and paintings; speculative and literary fiction, micro-fiction and poetry; music and audio works; digital poetry and digital flash fiction; and other artistic forms. The publication of these convergent arts will also support our mission of advancing the education about and research of autism. Our books, DVD, online magazines and other media combine two or more art forms to create new hybridized art, augmenting traditional art with new technologies. Serving the art community, the autism community and promoting quality artists are keystones for our company.
Works Cited
Barry, Nathan. "10 Great Technologies We Got From Science Fiction." Wired: Geek Dad. Condé Nast Web Sites, 2 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2010.
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DZANC BOOKS
