Birth of a Titan

Ice Cold Sunrise on Mars (2008)
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Texas A&M University

Welcome to the premiere issue of Mnemosyne, a quarterly magazine devoted to promoting the highest-quality art, science and literature about the mind. I conceived Mnemosyne in January 2011 in the hope of building a virtual community where artists, scientists and readers could come together to explore their shared interest in the mind and consciousness. I was lucky enough to enlist historian and mythology expert Helen Noakes as Senior Editor. Now, six months later, I am proud to announce that–with an enormous amount of help from Helen, some valuable design advice from Paula Hendricks and contributions from many amazing writers, painters, sculptors and photographers–our little experiment is off to a remarkable start.

In this issue, we feature three articles which will introduce the reader to the world of autism, a developmental disorder that affects millions of children and adults in the U.S. alone. You will read about the disorder from the very different perspectives of a parent, a researcher, and a person with autism. Through these three stories, we hope you will gain a glimmer of understanding into a complex and misunderstood disorder.

In the arts, we feature a review of “Reflected on Air,” an exhibit at the Frey Norris gallery in San Francisco of work by Chinese painter Zhong Biao, whose paintings have been seen in such diverse places as the New York Times and at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

In addition to these features, we present essays, fiction, art and more from nearly two dozen writers and artists from five countries on four continents.

We encourage our guests to join the dialogue. If an article or story piques your interest, please comment.  Our authors are passionate about their topics, and they would love to hear from others who share these interests.  Many of them will take an active role in any discussion which ensues.

So before we begin, I’d like to introduce our namesake, the Greek Titan Mnemosyne….  On second thought, perhaps she should introduce herself.