Dear Readers,
This issue comes to you right after some incredible news: we won the 2022 IGNYTE Award for Best Fiction Podcast! This comes on the back of two additional honours: khōréō was a finalist for the 2022 IGNYTE Community Award and long-listed for the Hugo for Best Semiprozine. Thank you so much to everyone who voted for us after just our first year of publishing. We are so grateful for your enthusiasm and support for our new magazine. Here’s to many more years of publishing and producing immigrant and diaspora stories!
It’s hard to believe that we’re already close to the end of our second volume. In this issue, we’re bringing you stories of loss: of a grandparent (“Unname Me at the Altar” by Ashaye Brown); of a sibling (“All Good Children Come Out and Play” by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez); of identity (“Skin” by Isha Karki); of a husband (“The Storyteller” by Rhea Roy); and of—temporarily—homeland (“This Excessive Use of Pickled Foods” by Leora Spitzer). But these tales are full of magic, and while some are incontrovertible, not every loss is forever or quite what you expect it to be.
The theme of this issue seems particularly fitting since we are also sad to announce that, after two years of incredible work with this magazine, Rowan Morrison will be stepping away as Fiction Editor. He has been truly instrumental in building khōréō into what it is today and it’s hard to imagine the magazine without him; the kindness and empathy with which he approaches every story he champions is unparalleled.
We recently celebrated our second anniversary of being incorporated, and already the magazine and team have transformed so much. We look forward to growing and evolving with you: we’re always excited to hear from individuals who are interested in joining our team, and we also plan to start a Patreon soon to (hopefully) find an even broader audience.
With gratitude,
Aleksandra Hill, Kanika Agrawal, and Rowan Morrison
Fiction Editors
