Light Through the Leaves: A Letter from One of Our Editors

I’ll begin with a recommendation: the film Perfect Days. It follows a man who cleans Tokyo’s public toilets—each one a work of art in itself—as he moves through an enviably monastic, analog life. Although almost nothing happens, so much happens in this film. Leaves flit against sunlight. Nina Simone plays on a tapedeck. Gorgeous Tokyo bathrooms become spotlessly clean. It’s a memoir of presence, what The Atlantic called it the ultimate reset movie, and it’s good medicine for a broody time of year. 

Watching it helped me draw back to the present after the frenzy of the holidays (my five-year-old asked me this week: “Why even is there winter after Christmas?” I told him: to rest!). It also is a fitting framework as Abraxas enters its third issue cycle—being present allows us to slow down, to notice, to reflect, all of which contributes to the creation process.

Thank you for being a part of what we are doing here at Abraxas, especially in a landscape oversaturated with literary journals and thousands of calls for submissions landing in your inboxes daily. We are humbled to be able to bring you the work of writers and artists that can help us all feel a bit more analog, a bit more chronically offline (even in an online space, somehow), and a bit more human.

In our little corner at Abraxas, we remain devoted to the beautiful and strange. As we step into 2025—a year undoubtedly set for upheaval—we’re bringing in more readers, growing our masthead, and aiming to deepen our connection with writers who share our love for the analog, the chronically offline, the authentic, and the non-contrived. Light through the leaves. 

That’s the energy we’re carrying into 2025, and I hope you’ll join us. 

Marin Smith

Co-Editor-in-Chief

Abraxas Review