We hope this issue receives your seal of approval.

As soon as we opened up to submissions in January, we received a number of questions about whether we would accept mermaid-adjacent stories. Lots of people find the Selkie resonant: a woman who can be a seal in the ocean and then literally shed her skin to take a human form on land is a powerful transformation idea, but it also comes with a price, and that price is vulnerability. Selkies let us explore the idea of inhabiting two worlds, and also let us explore the themes of sacrifice, willing or unwilling, and trust…both freely given and honored, and also horribly abused and betrayed. Given all that, and the high number of quality Selkie pieces we received, taking a whole special issue for them was a natural step.

In this issue, we tried to balance the different kinds of possibilities in the Selkie myth. It would be very easy to have an issue solely devoted to cathartic explorations of domestic abuse, and some of our pieces do go there, but we also wanted to show narratives that embraced healthy power dynamics and trust that was rewarded instead of betrayed.

Below you’ll find six poems, six short stories, a comic, and two illustrations that range from rage to whimsy. There are space selkies, heist selkies, and of course, a number of queer selkies.