It arrived like a beacon pushing through a heavy fog, or the first gray shoots of daylight at dawn’s very opening, or more specifically as a notification in my direct messages. Things have changed in ways no one ever wanted, structures and edifices slouched and then slid into rubble, streets are all ashes, and yet it is clear that there is another side of it all—that there is still a pulse, an understory waiting to break and burst forth. It can be easy to lose sight of this, and I had lost sight of it when the notification came. Of course there would be a Name Of The Year Bracket, and of course it would need a home. That we could make a home for the bracket here is fortuitous. That Drew and I might be able to resume our annual tradition of saying names like “Editrix St. Furt” or “Krokodilbert Van Der Peen” and then giggling like idiot 11-year-olds…it was something I’d forgotten I could dream about, until I saw the light.

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