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Welcome back to the Reckoning Press podcast! This week we have for you a beautifully wistful performance by Sophia Eilis Singson of "When Teens Turned Into Trees" by Sigrid Marianne Gayagnos.

This is the first of two stories that appear in Reckoning 6 about people turning into trees, the other being Wen Yi Lee's "Rooted", which comes out online next month. Both are beautiful and haunting. Both deal with familial love and loss--in particular with a loss, and relinquishing, of control. I'd encourage you to read or listen to them side by side when you have the chance. We also received quite a few other stories on this theme in the submissions! I don't know what it is about this moment--honestly I'm still trying to figure it out, so if you have any thoughts please let me know--but it seems to be an idea whose time has come.

Sigrid's story is particularly compelling for me because it provides a desperately needed window on what it must be like to be growing up in a time when the world around us is failing and there seems to be only so much left to be done.

Two small pieces of news before we get going.

In case you haven't heard, we've just announced a new submission call for a special issue about bodily autonomy and environmental justice, Our Beautiful Reward, edited by Catherine Rockwood. To read that call and submit, you can go to reckoning.press/submit.

Next week we'll be announcing our first-ever fundraiser, with the goal of raising payrates for writers, staff, and podcast readers, and including cool rewards like pins, t-shirts, personal story critiques from some of our editors past and present, and other weirder fun stuff. Please check back for details.

Thank you for listening!

[Bio below.]

"When Teens Turned Into Trees" by Sigrid Marianne Gayangos