Solarpunk Magazine Year 5, Issue #25

Issue twenty-five heralds five years of continuous publication for Solarpunk Magazine; I welcome our readership to this celebratory editorial! In five years, we have experienced a wonderfully diverse cast of editors with origins all across the globe. I thank our editors, past and present, for the efforts extended in service to Solarpunk Magazine and its mission. I thank our authors and artists for trusting our title with their works, many of which are informed by the traumas of enduring climate disaster firsthand. I thank our readership for their support of not only our magazine, but of the hopes and practices extolled within.

The past five years saw the creation of unique magazine issues and events. In our founding year, we published “Colorful Roots,” our annual summer issue that exclusively features creators of color. We’ve enjoyed several collaborations, including the issue we co-created with Paid Time Off Magazine and Jobs With Justice in 2022. My cohort and I have appeared on a number of speculative fiction panels, including the “Hopepunk” panel presented via the Watertown Public Library in 2023 and the “Fistfights in Utopia” panel at the 2024 Solarpunk Conference. We fondly remember the panel “Recovering the Human in Energized Futures,” delivered at ASU’s Anticipation 2022 conference, which we developed with Clark A. Miller, Joey Eschrich, and the Land Art Generator Initiative. In March of 2025, Accelerate Resilience Los Angeles hosted SO[L.A.]RPUNK, a small-scale event that facilitated the meeting of solarpunk editors and authors (here is where I met my co-editor, Justine, for the first time in person!); we are grateful for the continued support and guidance on behalf of ARLA. In late 2025, Solarpunk Magazine achieved nonprofit status, thus saving the publication from a financially uncertain future; our ability to generate funding has broadened exponentially, and as a result, we have raised our author pay rates beyond SFWA standards.

As a reflection of what I have learned since Solarpunk Magazine’s inception, I have redrawn our official website banner. Its predecessor was the first piece of art in the solarpunk vein that I had ever created, and it wears its inexperience enthusiastically. Note the haphazard composition of non-infrastructure:

While the buildings remain unidentifiable, the joy and whimsy is apparent. Clearly this iteration is informed primarily by fantasy and less by function; though I don’t disagree with fantastical solarpunk media, my views of the genre have changed to align more with praxis. The newest version (which also serves as this issue’s cover art) retains color and adds people, food sources, energy sources, and transportation. Below the new banner is its compositional inspiration–the view from the adjunct office on the SUNY New Paltz campus, where I work as an English adjunct professor.

I intended for the infrastructure to appear multi-use; facilities that might serve as community hubs and silos also function as vertical farms. Solar panels, photovoltaic windows, and windmills allude to a diverse energy portfolio that relies on the availability of local energy sources. Shuttle systems move people between facilities distanced by native flora. Monarch butterflies signal the return of their migration–I drew on my memories of undergrad, when their ascent cluttered the airspace and I had to drive slower than usual. The peregrine falcon is a nod to the work of falconer, conservationist, and SUNY New Paltz professor Heinz Meng, who bred the species back from the edge of extinction in 1971. Two dovecotes provide local fertilizer and shelter for pigeons. Vultures acknowledge the cycle of death in a scene abundant with life. A paper wasp and bottle fly represent overlooked and oppressed pollinating invertebrates. Lastly, gourds are one of humanity’s first vessels. They allowed us to carry water and music. I grow these in my garden. 

This brief respite cannot end without a call for activism. We call on our peers in the United States to resist the total fear imposed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We urge you to know your rights in the event of contact with an ICE agent and to share this knowledge with others. We at Solarpunk Magazine stand with the murdered victims of ICE, including Keith Porter and Renee Good. We stand with our immigrant and migrant communities. We stand for the enduring freedom of the exploited Global South and reject the imperial reach of the West.

Here are the works featured in issue twenty-five of Solarpunk Magazine:

Jeff Hewitt’s “Built to Spec” is a script that explores the story behind an architect’s work with a mysterious geodesic dome.

Rae Mariz expands upon a futuristic world published as multiple stories across various platforms in “The Impossible Puzzle.” This narrative follows Auntie Cade’s efforts to comfort a newborn amid a storm.

We share the works of Mari Ness and Pratibha Kumari within our poetry section.

In “How Sociopathic Power Changed my Life and What it Taught Me About War,” Aya Al-Hattab, a Palestinian journalist currently residing in Gaza, draws from a past experience with a peer in her analysis of pathocracy. This article is the first in a series by Al-Hattab titled Radical Hope from Gaza.

Wren James discusses the creation of a climate fiction writing guide that challenges the overrepresentation of dystopia within cli-fi in “Creating ‘The Climate-Conscious Writers Handbook.’”

Please enjoy issue twenty-five and join us in celebrating five years of publishing!

Brianna Castagnozzi
co-Editor-in-Chief | Solarpunk Magazine