Join Orion and the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) to celebrate Orion’s Summer 2025 issue, The Future Is Fungi. This free virtual event will feature two contributors from the issue—award-winning writers and Orion contributing editors Erica Berry and Meera Subramanian—in a conversation moderated by Theodore Ross, editor-in-chief of FERN, Orion’s publication partner on one of the features in the issue.
So often, when humans look at mushrooms, we’re apt to see solutions—a cure, a trip, a metaphor, an answer to a problem that we probably created in the first place. In this issue of Orion, we seek to let the mushroom be, simply, itself; a marvel of mystery and interconnectedness that structures our world in ways we still don’t fully understand. Featuring contributions from Maria Popova, Merlin Sheldrake, Jeff VanderMeer, Lidia Yuknavitch, and this event’s panelists, the issue asks not what we should do with mushrooms, but how we can live alongside them.