Jeff VanderMeer Introduces Thaw, the Winter 2025 Issue
Guest Editor Jeff VanderMeer on the origins of "thaw" and the impossibility of light without darkness
Happy Winter Solstice Soilpunks,
Today marks the shortest day and longest night of the year, and with that, the start of our days growing longer. Tractor Beam is celebrating the beginning of winter with the launch our fourth issue, Thaw, guest edited by author Jeff VanderMeer (@jeff_vandermeer123).
Over the next few weeks, we’ll share stories that grapple with what it means to “thaw” in ecologically and emotionally. Keep reading to hear Jeff’s perspective on the collection and subscribe to receive the stories in your inbox as they drop.
From The Editor
I’m one of those readers who has long had a fascination with the cold, and with the myriad stories of what becomes unearthed or found within it, whether due to the arrival of spring or some less natural process.
We think of cold and winter as a barrenness, even when it’s an essential part of life cycles and of the planet’s ecosystems. It is a very human impulse to enjoy stories in which we pit ourselves against that austerity, that implied hostility. In classic works like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, it is the relentless, almost endless journey of the two main characters across a planet trapped in a perpetual winter that brings them together and forges an enduring friendship. The isolation of the story within a particular climate lays bare how tenuous and fragile existence can be in an indifferent universe.
“You will find yourself in strange places indeed, where Winter is more than a landscape, it’s a character, or a mindset, and to come out of it is both a relief and a form of loss.”
But, then, too, without the cold, without the time of bare branches and howling winds or the tinkle of icicles and fish frozen in icy ponds, miraculous rebirth is meaningless. The harshness allows for things to become visible that usually are subsumed by a flurry of detail. Against the white, so very much can be seen, including the green shoots of thaw.
“Thaw” has been in use since the 12th century, and derives from the Old English “thawian,” sharing affinities with words in other languages that vary in meaning from “melt” to “waste away.” Today, the meaning of thaw is multidirectional. The most direct is simply to transition from a frozen to liquid state, but it can also mean to become free from stiffness due to exposure to warmth, “to abandon aloofness, reserve, or hostility.”
In this issue of Tractor Beam, the contributors explore both the cold and the negation of cold with dexterity and dimensionality. They show us how our idea of barren and our idea of desolate are hardwired into us from a time when our ancestors had to survive the winter with minimal technological advantages. These narratives also push us to consider adaptation, transformation, and alternatives to what you might call inheritance or even “caretaking,” in a stasis sense—while also understanding that the seasons, regardless of our gaze, will always change.
“Without the cold, without the time of bare branches and howling winds or the tinkle of icicles and fish frozen in icy ponds, miraculous rebirth is meaningless.”
Part of what we do when we portray new ways of thinking or new ways of seeing the very earth beneath our feet is to try to push back against what is engrained and instinctual. In stories like “Wheel Dog” and “Mustard Seed”, the authors scratch the itch that leads many of us to devour anything with an arctic feel to it, while not giving in to old foundational ideas about our Earth or tropes of its future.
And as you go on your own expedition even farther into this issue–into texts like “The Order of Soil” and “We Don’t Talk About the Weather in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico”, and visual experiences like “Birdwatching” or “The Valley in Thaw”–you will find yourself in strange places indeed, where Winter is more than a landscape, it’s a character, or a mindset, and to come out of it is both a relief and a form of loss. In these stories, we often see the personal side of this planetary phenomenon, the warmth after the thaw, the impossibility of light without darkness.
I hope you find the full range of “thaw” in the stories collected for this issue of Tractor Beam and be as entertained, moved, and driven to thought as I was reading them.
About the Guest Editor
Jeff VanderMeer is the author of the NYT-bestselling, award-winning Southern Reach series, including the latest, Absolution. The first novel in the series, Annihilation, was turned into a movie by Paramount. His work deals with environmental themes and his nonfiction on the topic has appeared in TIME, Esquire, The Nation, the New York Times, the LA Times, and many others. You can learn more about his work here.
Stay tuned…
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