Introduction to Issue 5
Alternative Lifestyles/Alternate Realties

As a person in a same-sex relationship who loves both poetry, and the many diverse speculative genres of writing, guest editing this issue of Eye to the Telescope, which melds them together, was especially exciting for me and with all the sociopolitical issues surrounding the LGBTQ community of late, both around the world, and especially here in the U.S., this issue is timely.

Having a LGBTQ poetry issue of a journal or magazine is nothing new in literary circles, but it is rare when it comes to genre writing, and the few times that I’ve come across one, it has been heavy on the fairy tale/mythology-retellings subgenre of fantasy, with nary a SF or horror piece in sight. Now, I enjoy a well-written fantasy poem as much as the next person—this issue includes dragons, Greek mythology, and two very different, but equally amazing poems inspired by the Sleeping Beauty tale—but I wanted to do something unique, which embraced the diversity of genre writing as well as that of the writers (and the readers), because diversity is exactly what the LGBTQ community stands for. So, in this issue of ETTT, not only will you find Sleeping Beauty, but also B-horror-movie scenarios, mad scientists, space colonists, aliens, zombies, and ghosts. Sticking to this theme of diversity, the writers themselves run the gamut, from seasoned pros like Marge B. Simon, Linda D. Addison, and Lawrence Schimel to first-timers like Ada Hoffmann (this is her first published poem) and Usman Malik (this is his first published work).

I hope that someday in our real future diversity will be such a “normal” part of culture that there will no longer be a need for alternative-lifestyle-themed anything … but we’re not there yet.

I don’t expect that every reader will love every poem in this collection, but if just one poem speaks to each person who reads this, then I’ve done my job as an editor. Enjoy.

Sincerely,