We often think technology has made our lives better. We can easily heat up our leftovers in the microwave, dictate our papers and letters into our phones, take photos of anything we want, and FaceTime with family and friends who are far away. But instead of celebrating these conveniences, the stories and plays in this issue note the price that we pay for them. Technology— and all the power our devices require—has sucked the beauty and color from our planet. It has replaced humans in their jobs, creating endless, and endlessly frustrating, telephone calls with robots. It has become so addicting and seemingly necessary that it even seems to control us, rather than the other way around.
Though the days are now getting longer, January is a dark month, and the poems, stories, plays, and art in this issue are all dark—sometimes darkly comic!—and extremely thought-provoking. I hope reading these stories will prompt you to reevaluate the role of technology as well as the role of nature in your life. As always, we encourage you to write these thoughts down and share them with Stone Soup in whatever mode of expression you prefer.
Finally, welcome to 2020—we’re excited to share another year of Stone Soup with you!
