Months ago, before a pandemic shattered the foundation of our lives, before an uprising of immense magnitude echoed the sheer depravity of racial injustice in the United States, our humble group of editors decided on a theme that at the time seemed full of possibility. In the wake of climate disaster, a global pandemic, and virulent anti-Blackness, imagining paradise is a radical act. Our society deliberately seeks to suppress imagination—especially the imagination of those from historically marginalized, silenced, and erased perspectives. Refusing to surrender our childlike wonder is one of the most liberating acts availed to us. As Octavia E. Butler wrote in Parable of the Talents (1998), “We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves.” We can—and must—do better. 

Paradise may be a far-reaching, even insurmountable goal. To seek a place of extreme beauty, delight, and happiness in a time of seemingly ceaseless trauma and fear might be impossible—and yet might be essential to the survival of our human and ecological communities. Across centuries and cultures, we have often turned to writers and artists for hope. For visions and revisions of paradise.

In this issue, we encourage you to find the holy in the natural world, be awestruck, reject the permanency of environmental sacrificial zones, and question proposed sanctuary at the expense of the good, lifegiving greenness that surrounds us all. From Appalachia to Arches National Park, from a pond in the woods to a ghost tree, to places not found on any map, these authors and artists encourage us to reframe paradise not as a destination, but as an embodiment of all the life we have within each of us.

In this time of global uncertainty, we are reminded that environmental justice is inseparable from social justice. We are reminded of our interconnectedness with each other and all life on Earth. We thank the medical professionals, the essential and front-line workers, and the protesters of injustice and anti-Blackness who work on behalf of all of us toward a better world. As we continue to dream of freedom, we hope the poems, stories, essays, and images in this issue spark the desire for a more holistic understanding of our place on this earth—an understanding that, by dreaming, imagining, and creating together, we begin to build.