What do you resist?

Resistance to… late stage capitalism… land theft… genocide… apartheid… colonisation… climate fucking… consumer culture… fast living… cis-heteronormative bullshit…

Issue 3: THREAD Editorial

Welcome to the third issue of Riverstone, themed through the lens of thread. When I began gathering ideas for this issue I was drawn back to mycelium, a long term love of mine. Back to the earth, back to roots. I was in a really textural headspace, and the delight and excitement I feel to share the offerings in this issue also feels so very tangible.

The works themselves are so grounded in texture, so deeply sensory. Space is taken and held and exploded, time is unraveled and broken open. Many of these pieces exist in the body and many travel through the cosmic. Family, and what family means, is stretched and carried across meaning and personal histories. Grief is caressed and torn into and spat back out. Queer joy is given language and even Sappho is yearned for.

It is always so beautiful how certain pieces speak to one another; from Theo McTigue’s exploration into the cosmos sitting parallel to Henry Chase Richards’ spatial and temporal demarcations, between Steph Elsley and E J Delaney’s separate untetherings from grandparents, from Hebe Kearney’s poetics of ancient Greek women to Emerald Jane’s invocation of the Moirai. There are many more links throughout this issue, between Grace Roodenrys and Sen Vanderzalm in their sifting through familial memory, between Flynn Howard and Jessica Carter’s ruminations through twilight, and more. Some links are big and bold and chanting. And others are almost threadbare, counterparts at the sentence level, or simply a wording that echoes another. I see this issue as a huge woven quilt, with patches of many fabrics, threaded together, all touching in some part at some point. These pieces are all in conversation with one another, they are in chorus, let them sing to you!

Lucy Wylie