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Dear Readers and Magic Believers,

Hello again! It’s been one year since we dropped a volume, and with OyeDrum’s fifth volume, I feel an awakening and contagious excitement over what you are about to experience. This collection is a testament to the different shapes and forms in which “madness,” this issue’s theme, manifests. We explore the reasons and various definitions of a word that, historically, has haunted and damned women, queers, innovators, and creative minds. A term that also describes turbulent times, like present day. But where does madness come from? What sparks it? 

In volume five, our contributors illustrate all facets of “madness,” through words, sounds, and images. Here, our writers and artists explore and express “madness,”–questioning, defining, or redefining the meaning of “madness” and “reality.”

I’ve always been fascinated by individual and collective “madness,” especially historical women who were declared “mad.” From Sylvia Plath to Yayoi Kusama’s dots. They make me wonder: what does “madness,” really mean? And so in our last open call, I asked women: what’s the meaning of “madness?”  Receiving an overwhelming amount of hybrid and experimental submissions (what we always hope to receive), with answers that were just as complex. It’s a memory, a dream, a feeling, an alternate reality, a feeling, a fever. 

This volume is different in how we approached our selection, marking a new direction for OyeDrum. In the past, we selected works as a collective, but we had one juror per category this time around, and I’d like to thank my fellow volume 5 witch jurors and staff (The Coven) for their hard work and for shaping Volume 5, allia abdullah-atta who served as our poetry juror and editor, Alex Graffeo for selecting this issue’s fiction, and Neda Zahraie for her editing work. I’d also like to thank Jillian Li, a contributor in this volume who was commissioned to create the dreamy banner for volume 5.

If you love what you’ve experienced, and wish to show your appreciation for all the hard work or help us cover the costs that has gone into creating this volume, including time spent reviewing hundreds of submissions, which we keep free of cost, then please consider a donation! We appreciate the tips. We’re a volunteer-run operation and passion project, made up of professionals, and every aspect of these volumes, which we would like to continue producing, is a labor of love. We’re about to launch a sponsorship program. If you’d like to know more, reach out. Announcements coming soon!  We want to keep this witchy party going!

Thanks for your readership! Keep it weird! 

Love,

Amarantha 

Editor-in-Chief

The Head Witch 

Art Juror/Editor: Amarantha da Cruz

Poetry Juror/Editor: allia abdullah-atta

Fiction Juror: Alex Graffeo

Editor/Copyeditor: Neda Zahraie 

Banner Artwork: Jillian Li