This is the age of niche identities and tiny, big ideas – and here’s a good one: a literary/visual botanical magazine for the flower girl/boy in you and the wannabe gardener in me (I only know how to keep Orchids, who like cats, are low maintenance but sensitive). Future Fossil Flora is *in print* meaning you can hold it and smell it in your hands (yes, like a flower), and the first issue with the theme of the Poppy has my short story, Roya’s Delight, and a couple of paintings in it. It’s about an Afghan girl living in Tehran. I anticipate that it’s a criticism prone subject but it is a subject is well-researched and in honour of a friend I had in grade school. We were both on the basketball team and she was point-guard, fast on the court and a bit shy but resilient outside of it. She was an Afghan living in Tehran, a few streets away from mine. Back then I was unaware of what that experience may entail, although I got sporadic glimpses of it, and in any case, the experience of being 13 and speaking to boys and ditching lessons to go play ball felt like the most important, controversial, cool. Ten years later, I wrote my dissertation thesis on the representation of Afghans in Persian speaking and Iranian media, and delved deeper. I guess this story is a variation on the same theme. But it is just that, a story.

Hope you enjoy. xo