What does “Harbinger” mean to Apparition Lit?

Greetings and salutations!

Here it is, friends and lovers. Our own personal “Harbinger;” Apparition Lit’s aptly themed last open call! What a hard, hard goodbye this will be, but all good things, dear friends. All good things… 

Our last few missives have been full of good friends and long-time advocates, including this issue’s guest editor Aurelius Raines. Aurelius has often been a kind voice of support for our magazine, and a successful creator and teacher in his own right. We are fortunate to have his support in these dark times. We are even more excited to have him guide this ship into its final port…

That being said, we do not plan to go quietly into that good night. We are looking for the fantastic, dark, exciting and strange…as we always have! 

Please read on to hear all about what our readers are hoping to receive as their last rites…

Aurelius Raines (Our Auspicious Guest Editor): In Khalil Gibran’s Forerunner, he says that we are the harbingers of our own future. A prophet, wishing to tell us about our tomorrow, would need only to divine our present. 

Speculative writers have always spoken of tomorrow’s harvest by sorting today’s seeds. 

What does our now say about our future? How do the tea leaves read? 

Can we describe the architecture of our gateways and speak to the futures they promise?

Amy (All-Around Badass, Owner/Senior Editor, Poetry Editor, and Webmaster):  “I’m 1000% here for crows/corvids, vultures and manmade FAFO, like the decline of vultures in India and its effects (aka death of humans). 

Also, Cassandra is my favorite mythological character, so I’d love to see some twist on that with characters accurately predicting some real serious sh*t and NO ONE (mainly the patriarchy) believing her because of a curse -because the man in power got hurt when she turned him down, so he cursed her, like a dick- and then those people get their comeuppance.

Tehnuka (Terrific Submissions Reader): “Harbinger” once meant someone sent ahead to prepare lodgings for others. I’d like to see this older definition explored in both literal and metaphorical senses, alongside the broader idea of foreshadowing. Who or what comes ahead? Who or what comes behind? What is the relationship between the harbinger and the follower? And what  ‘lodgings’—physical, social, spiritual, mental, emotional—do they find?

A. J. Van Belle (Amazing Submissions Reader): It would be interesting to see stories in which premonitory dreams, or premonitions in general, are convincingly portrayed. There’s a lot of room to weave harbingers, portents, and foreknowledge together with themes of timeline shifts/quantum jumps/multiverse shenanigans.

The concept of forewarning raises questions as to whether we can change the future when we receive a harbinger. And would we want to change what we see or sense coming? Should we try?

There’s also an archaic meaning of harbinger as someone sent ahead of a group to act as a scout or prepare a path for the others, or to announce the others’ approach. This meaning isn’t particularly loaded with a sense of dread or mysticism, but it might be fun to see it exploited in a creative context.

Clarke (Owner/Senior Editor, and extremely Cool Creative): I agree with (Amy’s answer) corvids! First thing that came to mind for the Harbinger theme. 

I like that historically and in different cultures, corvids symbolize a lot of harbinger-y things, both good and bad. Death but also fortune-telling and luck. Tricksters but also messengers of the gods. They can symbolize transformation, which good and bad harbingers all basically signal; like harbingers of death and harbingers of spring are both about change and transformation. 

I’d love to see harbingers used in that kind of ambiguous way. Characters who must ask, “Is this good? Bad? Both? Neither? Is fate set or do we have agency to affect what’s to come and what is our obligation to do so? It could be interesting to read stories that explore the human predilection to…ignore signs of things to come that may require us to act or change or accept responsibility.

Whether a harbinger signals something good or something bad for you might depend on your position in society, your values, your vulnerabilities, your ethical code, your relationships, the choices you make and actions you take when presented with foreknowledge. 

How might a harbinger be weaponized? If someone or a group or a society recognize a harbinger, how might someone or some entity or some institution take advantage of that? Are people afraid? Complacent? Turning on each other? In this circumstance, who stands to gain and who stands to lose? Who is in power and who is vulnerable? 

As always, I’d love some spooky takes on the theme. Since harbingers are often bad omens in stories, there’s the risk of cliche or predictability…I want to be surprised by stories that go the dark route! 

 Also hoping this issue has at least one story with humor!

Moriam (Marvelous Submissions Reader): I’m interested in harbingers as signs. These signs may be obscure or obvious, magical, natural, or technological. I’d love to see complexity in the reactions to these signs; are they only acknowledged by one person, or a small group, or a society? Are there disadvantages to this sign for one group and benefits for another? I’m excited to see harbingers as narrative cores to express these imbalances, and the importance of choice when confronted with significant signs.

Evelyn (Exemplary Submissions Reader): I’m interested in seeing stories about resistance to harbingers: people who see the red moon shining when a king is crowned, but say, “Oh I’m sure it’ll be fine, he definitely won’t massacre his own people.” Or the town that points and laughs at the seer desperately trying to warn them about an incoming earthquake or alien invasion. There are so many harbingers of disaster in the natural world, but over the centuries humans have taught themselves to ignore many of them, to the point where it’s become astonishing if, for example, a kid saves a beach full of tourists because she learned about tidal waves in class a week ago. Animals, on the other hand, will more often than not instinctively flee. I’d love to see humans’ inculcated ignorance of such omens come back to bite them in the rear. 

Monique (Magnificent Submissions Reader): I like so much of what others have already said. I’d love to read stories that explore the theme from a science fiction perspective (as I think this is going to lean much more towards fantasy): harbingers as foreshadowing what is to come, perhaps in reference to climate stories or alien/first contact stories. But also, how those harbingers are acknowledged (or not). Are they embraced or ignored, by some or all of the community? How do these different approaches impact individuals and the group? Do these harbingers indicate something that should be changed? That can be changed?

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Harbinger is open now for submissions; check out our submissions page for all the details and get ready for the portal to open! 

And because you know I hate to say goodbye…Until next time, friends!

Photo by David Valentine on Unsplash