Letter From The Founder
It was a matter of time really and I can only blame myself. You see, although I like to imagine myself as a cult leader/ benevolent dictator, when it comes to running the Soaring Twenties Social Club community in truth I am still fairly wedded to the idea of democracy. I blame the education system. So anyway, as is always the case I decided to let everyone over at the STSC Discord vote on what this months Symposium topic would be.
And they collectively chose Dinosaurs.
F*cking dinosaurs.
I guess this will lead to a huge upswell in subscriptions from the 4-7 year old demographic. Because of course such youngsters are keen users of Substack and are really plugged in to all of the Culture War™️ goings on and the current will-A.I-destroy-the-world debate that are a mainstay of the platform.
This theme will surely take this ‘online literary magazine for the last of the real readers’ project we have running here to the next level.
Sigh. If I didn’t know better I could be led to think that the topic voting was sabotaged by group members who get an inordinate amount of pleasure out of sabotaging my good work. Bunch of jokers.
But with all of that being said our gang of talented writers/saboteurs have managed to (somehow) create a fantastic array of excellent works on this most questionable of topics. So maybe they know what they are doing after all.
So enjoy what we have to offer here today, and be sure to subscribe so you can catch next month’s collection. I dread to think that it will be about…
Essays
Dinosaur Indoctrination and Pink Begins Everything by Trilety
Already you can see that an interesting side effect of this whole dinosaur thing is that it has lead to some of the strangest (and best) titles we have ever seen in a symposium. And Trilety makes a case for taking gold in this category here.
Dinosaurs, Insects, Soil, and the End of Epochs by Stephanie
This is incredibly and carefully researched and well argued. I would expect nothing less from our resident risk analyst and systems thinker. Great stuff.
Jack Grealish and the Dinosaurs by Timothy
As someone from a Birmingham satellite town it’s a little dismaying that Super Jackie Grealish has become emblematic for us- ‘lovely bloke, not the brightest bulb though.’ Oh well. Fortunately for us our man Timothy is very bright, as this piece shows.
on dinosaurs, recurring dreams, and generational trauma by Kimia
Another candidate for the strangest essay title you have ever encountered. And another example of someone taking this silly dinosaurs prompt and absolutely running with it. Further proof we have a pretty creative bunch here.
Dinosaurs by Terry
At first I read this and thought ‘is that it?’. Then I got it and thought ‘oooh, that’s it.’ Clever stuff from Terry here, deceptively so.
Fiction
Monsters by Vanya
Vanya wins the award for earliest submission with this one. Weeks before the deadline. He must really like dinosaurs I guess. Or he’s just a great prolific writer with a solid work ethic.
Beelzebufo, The Annihilator Of Dinosaurs by Vanya (again)
Undecided if this constitutes cheating. Technically our man has double dipped but these two pieces are interrelated so I’m going to allow it. I’m capricious like that.
Dinosaurs on My Mind by Clint
Metanarrative is a very tricky thing to pull of successfully. Clint makes it look easy. Genuinely impressive achievement with this one.
The Robots Know Me Well by Minna
Fantastic work from Minna here, bolstered by great images. Curious to see what she comes up with for future Symposiums (Symposii?) based on the strength of this performance.
the apatosaurus and the kraken by Yuelian
Gonna just quote what Trilety said in the comment section of this one:
You are fucking brilliant and if this is what writer's block looks like (since you said you were experiencing that earlier) then damn, bring on the block, baby!
Field trip by Oleg
I’ll be honest. With this dinosaur prompt I was expecting a couple of nostalgia tinged essays and that would be it. I wasn’t expecting there to be the equivalent of a short story collection being sent to my desk. It’s nice to be surprised sometimes. This was a lovely story with a very, very pleasing ending.
Inside The Hall of Senators by Victor D. Sandiego
After his recent STSC submission our man Victor proves that he his far from a one hit wonder with this one.
Dino Play by G.K. Gaius
… and the same goes for GK. There’s a real impressive consistency to his fiction output on his Substack. Impressive.
Older Than Bones by Edward
I talk about consistency and being prolific a lot (perhaps because I’m not especially prolific myself and am thus impressed by it) but even among our proven group of writers Edward might well be the champion in these regards. Incredible output over at his Substack.
Near-Future Nostalgia by David
David posted with two minutes to spare. This may well be a record, not that I want people to get any ideas and try and get even closer to the wire in future! But this one was definitely worth David taking the maximum allowable amount of time on.
Poetry
Dinosaurs by James
But as the month went on my grand ambition shrank from a long story, to a short story, to flash fiction to… this.
Few are honest enough to make such admissions. And the end product is pretty good actually I must say.
Art and Visual
Dinosaurs in Disguise (at Huw’s Lake). Acrylic on 11”x 14” canvas by Jeanne Thompson
(I have it on good authority that there are 13 dinosaurs hidden in this painting. Can you find them all? Bet you can’t)
Haunted Tikal by D.B.
A trip to Guatemala with nods to Speilberg and Lucas. As well as tons of excellent photographs (what else would you expect from D.B?) I actually felt like I learned a thing of two with this one. Delightful.
Ꮤ𐋅𐌀𐌕 𐌋𐌀𐌍Ᏽ𐌵𐌀Ᏽ𐌄 Ꮤ𐌀𐌔 𐌉 𐌔𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌊𐌉𐌍Ᏽ? by Ryan
I guess dinosaurs here refers to the type of mobile phones that people used in the dinosaur era of these public service announcements. Disturbing stuff, as you’d expect.
So that was the STSC symposium on Dinosaurs, of all things. We hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Thank you for your support with these projects we put together, thank you for reading them and thanks for all of your comments, feedback and notes. Thank you for taking the time to share them and pass on the word.
And of course above all thanks to all of the contributors and those who help keep the STSC going via their kind support, especially those who keep a low profile, I hope we will be able to coax more of you into taking the plunge and participating in future issues.
Cheers.