The theme for this issue of Orlando is discourse. The themes have always been deliberately capacious and open to interpretation, in order to allow for broad and nuanced responses. This issue is no different, intending to consider discourse as a means to explore ways of organizing and sharing knowledge, experience, ideas, and also a way of re-writing knowledge, of communicating the silenced, the obscure, the unknown. In the era of Brexit, of Trump, of rampant nationalism, it has never felt more necessary or urgent to resist oppression, disrupt the canon, open borders, and breathe air into the foul-smelling echo chambers of bigotry and prejudice. Crucially, we also need to know when not to speak, and to think about listening, and how to elevate the important voices that are insidiously silenced by society. Orlando cuts through the noise of clickbait trolls and is an antidote to the ‘post-truth’ mainstream media. Publishing is a form of collective action, and discourse is an avenue in which to encourage radical conversation and critique. The articles and artwork in this issue consider and communicate ideas of amateurism and empathy, propose radical and alternative ways to experience multifarious identities, and consider how we can either academically analyze or casually converse about these new realities. The magazine at large is also inherently self-referential, by way of being a publication, and thus becomes it’s own document and testament to a varied and passionate discourse. - ORLANDO