Our journey begins under the gaze of The Faery Godmother by cover artist Ashley Rose Goentoro. We step into a ghost story 'Man with Golden Helmet' by feature author Renée Sarojini Saklikar. Dawn Lo in 'Little Snowflake Girls' and Weiwei Xu in 'Chimera' introduce us to young people exploring meaningful questions of identity and belonging. Like trailside inukshuks, memories pile up and tumble away in 'Moons of Saturn' by James Dorr, 'Practising the Art of Forgetting' by Soramimi Hanarejima, and 'Starry Nights' by David Milne. AJ Lee, in 'What Kind of Story', and Magpie winners Charlene Kwiatkowski, Maria Ford, and Cara Waterfall delight with their bewitching words. Solutions to two very different puzzles emerge with Susan Pieters in 'Hoax' and Cameron MacDonald in 'Mourgadze'. Whether by way of closet or carriage, keeping safe means keeping up appearances for Frankie Ray in 'The Sleuth with the Platinum Hair' by Mel Anastasiou and Toinette in 'The Shepherdess: Versailles' by JM Landels.

From the Pulp Lit Pulpit - Origin Stories