Sí, Hay Futuros Ediciones

<<Sí, Hay Futuros>> is the answer to a question I’ve been asking since I emigrated from Canada to make a home for myself in Colombia. Along my complex (and ongoing) road to residency, I have met many locals who laugh at the idea of a speculative and science fiction canon centred on South America. Too many times, I would hear bright, inventive, and persevering dreamers joke in particular that Colombia “doesn’t have a future.” I know that’s not true, and many Colombian creators know it isn’t, either. But there is a narrative, shaped by fragmented literary communities, significant levels of subsistence-level adversity, and an underdeveloped education system, that can make the work of imagining better futures seem frivolous (at best) and naïve (at worst).

Sí, Hay Futuros Ediciones hopes to be one of many local initiatives attempting to change the story, both with respect to how the world sees Colombia, and to how Colombians see their future in the world. (You can read about some other local creators, and their hardwon battles to create a distinct and versatile science-fiction scene, in an interview I ran for Analog Science Fiction & Fact.)

This online press is still in the “dreaming” phase, though, because its creator (me! M L Clark) has to wait until at least April 14, 2021 to make their legal situation stable enough to launch Phase II. Time and again here, I’ve tried to find ways to collaborate effectively, and time and again legal impediments have kept me from being a proper, consistent presence among communities building change from within. Having learned from these past failures, I now absolutely refuse to on-board more folks, or make more promises, until I’ve got a lock on my path to residency again. In the meantime, though, I can study, I can signal-boost, and I can listen.

And hopefully those dreams of mine? Those dreams of so many folks on the outside of the global market’s benefits, looking in? With any luck (and a lot of hard work and increased skills), those dreams will seem increasingly attainable as this platform gains readership and supporters.

So, thank you for joining me in the dreaming.

Please check out “Proyectos futuros” for a glimpse at what I’m aiming to achieve.